

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


©^ap^ZiidtiptjrijW Ifo. 
Shelf^Z&.5£ 






i 

































/ 























9 























* 

















































































V 








. 


























t 





* . ' 





















































































































































































. 







8 


July 2, 1887 

- 6 ^ 


•CHOfCE-^EADJNG- V M)* 


*:i S S UED/.WEEKLY :• 

'\E0-AT.THE-P0iT-0frfCE.AT*6O5TON*A5*JEC0N0-CLAj;*AWrTEI^ 



CHOICE NEW BOOKS. 


The Confessions of_ Claud. 

By Edgar Fawcktt. With portrait. £1.50. 

“ There is an ‘untranslatable 
charm’ about the writings of Ed- 
gar Fawcett. One may correctly 
characterize him as fascinating. 
Brilliant, witty, eloquent, subtle, 
delicate — all these terms might 
respectively apply.” — Providence 
Telegram . 

. - 

Forced Acquaintances. 

By Edith Robinson. lamo. $1.50. 

“The book is a thoroughly 
healthy one, and can go on the 
shelf of a young girl’s library be- 
side ‘The Old Fashioned Girl,’ 
‘Little Women/ and ‘The Daisy 
Chain .’” — Boston Transcript. 


Agnes Surriage. 

By Edwin Lassbtter Bymnbr. I1.50. 
A romance of Colonial Massachusetts. 

“ I have derived much enjoyment 
from Mr. Bynner's book. It has 
strength and manliness,” says 
Julian Hawthorne. 

“ The best novel that has come 
out of Boston this generation,” 
says Kate Sanborn, 


Sons and Daughters. 

A new novel by the author of “The Story 
of Margaret Kent.” iamo. $1.50. 

“The great novel of this season, 
the leading thing in fiction, in 
social discussion and interest.” — 
Boston Traveller. 

Rankell’s Remains. 

An American novel. By Barrbtt Wen- 
dell. $ 1 . 

“The telling is remarkably well 
done. It is full of power, and the 
intensity of underlying tragedy,” 
says Nora Perry. 


Liber Amoris. 

A Medieval Love-Story in rhyme. By 

Henry Bernard Carpenter. $ 1.75 . 

“It is unique, rich, lofty and 
beautiful,” says David Swing. 

“A work charged with faith, 
hope, belief in immortal love, and 
written with such exuberant beauty 
of romance, such joy in existence 
and such remarkable command of 
verbal music,” says George Par- 
sons Lathrop. 


The Strike in the B— Mill. 

A novel of labor. $ 1 . In paper covers, 50 c. 

“It is a dramatic story.” — JV. Y. 
Sun. 

“A careful study of the labor 
movement, fair in tone, well writ- 
ten and interesting.” — Journalist. 

Happy Dodd. 

By Rose Terry Cooke. $1.50. 
“Lightened throughout with those 
touches of humor and that inimi- 
table skill of portraying country 
life which so distinguishes every- 
thing that comes from Mrs. 
Cooke’s pen. The bock is, more- 
over, thoroughly sweet, wholesome 
and hear ty.— Boston Courier . 


Two Gentlemen of Boston. 

A novel. x?mo. #1.50. 

George Parsons Lathrop says 
that the author “ has a great deal 
of direct, impressive force, uncom- 
mon power of vivid narration, 
graphic skill in depicting, and 
the book ‘ reminds one of the self- 
absorbed narration of Miss Bur- 
ney’s * Evelina/ of Emily Brontes 
masterpiece, 4 Wuthering Heights’ 
and of Jane Austen’s microscopi- 
cally realistic accounts of daily 
life” 7 


For sale by all booksellers , or will be sent , post free, on receipt of price , by 

TICKNOR & COMPANY, BOSTON. 





THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN 



THE 





House of the Musician 


BY 



VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON 

h 


AUTHOR OF “THE FAINALLS OF TIPTON,” “TULIP PLACE,” “THE 
NEPTUNE VASE,” ETC. 


La Vita e un Sogno 



BOSTON 


TICKNOR AND COMPANY 



1887 


7 








Copyright, 1887, by 
TICKNOR & COMPANY. 


All tights reserved. 


ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED 
BY RAND AVERY COMPANY. 
BOSTON. 


La Vita & un Sogno. Life is truly a dream, full 
of regretful retrospection and sweet anticipation. 

Remote from other towns, and wholly apart from 
other phases of experience, lies Venice on her Adriatic 
shore, no longer the jewel-casket of the world, as in 
the fifteenth century, but a vision, vague, fleeting, 
ever crumbling to decay, with a mirage of dome and 
tower rising amidst the fitful mists of the horizon. 

Life, the dream, and the dream-city blend. What 
are both save a memory, a voice, an echo calling over 
the waters in the twilight. 


. 













. 





































































































































‘ 
































































































CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A Venetian Portrait 11 

II. The Sea City 43 

III. A Young Pilgrim 68 

IV. The House of the Musician 88 

V. The Enemy across the Way 126 

VI. Two Sisters 145 

VII. Love 172 

VIII. The Hail in the Wall 197 

IX. Adriatic Waves 223 

X. The Paris Salon 263 












































































* 























. 





























































THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN 











THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


CHAPTER I. 

A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 

The Rhine flows in a tame and sluggish 
current beyond Cologne, Bonn, and Diissel- 
dorf, to a grave in the North Sea. Forgetful 
of a birthright amidst the glaciers and pine- 
forests of that majestic cradle in the Rhetian 
Alps, weary of a glorious prime, wending past 
the Loreley Berg and Drachenfels, and bear- 
ing in the murmur of lapsing waters only the 
echo of legend, and the tradition of the Niebe- 
lungen gold once confided to its keeping at 
the Rosengarten Ferry, the stream hastens to 
a goal, as if desirous to gain oblivion in the 
vast expectant ocean. 

Many years ago an old man walked along 
the bank at a spot near Pannerden, where the 
Rhine divides into two branches. 


n 


12 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

The season was late in the autumn, and the 
withered leaves, golden and russet, still clung 
to the trees, or lay scattered on the path, thus 
enhancing the melancholy aspect of the scene. 
The brown hues of the earth, and the bare 
twigs of the shrubbery along the ridges, met 
the horizon line of a uniform gray mist. 

The man and the river possessed a certain 
resemblance. Both had passed their prime, 
and approached the end of their course ; but 
while the Rhine was loyally German, the 
wayfarer was a cosmopolitan, owning neither 
home nor kindred. 

Elias Heins was one of those- eccentric 
beings occasionally to be met in European 
centres, devoted to the study of ruins, ancient 
languages, and manuscripts. Profoundly eru- 
dite, he imparted knowledge only fitfully, and 
more frequently hoarded in silence the vast 
store of his own acquirements. 

Living, he was at home in every country, 
and turned from deciphering some Runic in- 
scription in Scandinavia, to seek a Greek sen- 
tence at Rome, indifferent to the hunger or 
fatigue of the journey. Dead, he would leave 
a few papers with which to puzzle scholars ; 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT . 


13 


and his memory would as inevitably perish as 
his body crumble to dust. 

France estimated him with a half-cynical 
respect ; Germany reasoned with him in 
somewhat ponderous debate ; England would 
have admitted him to the archives of the Brit- 
ish Museum with less reluctance, had his rai- 
ment been less shabby and greasy ; and Italy 
accepted him, with a shrug of the shoulders, as 
a harmless madman, — one of those strangers 
who emerge from Northern lands, according to 
the Neapolitan code, where snow always pre- 
vails, the houses are built of wood, ignorance 
is great, while money is sufficiently abundant. 

Seen on the Rhine bank at this hour, with 
his stooping figure, gray hair and beard flow- 
ing over breast and shoulders, sharp nose, 
and piercing eyes gazing forth from beneath 
shaggy brows, the imagination had free scope 
to invest him with characteristics in harmony 
with the spot. He might have been in league 
with Manasseh Ben Israel and Ephraim Bonus 
in cabalistic studies, or the ghostly phantom of 
one of those wizards evoked by the bishops 
of Stolzenfels in thd practice of the unholy 
rites of alchemy. 


14 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

In reality he had landed from a passing 
steamer to investigate a spot some leagues 
inland, where he had once found a Eoman 
coin in the upturned soil. 

He grasped his stout staff more firmly, drew 
his threadbare . brown coat closely about his 
sparse form, and pressed his shabby hat more 
firmly over his brow. 

He was intent on reaching the next hamlet 
before night fell. The rudest shelter sufficed 
for his modest requirements as a traveller ; 
some bundles of straw for a couch, the felt 
hat for a pillow, and Rembrandt’s dinner of a 
herring with bread and cheese, amply satisfied 
Elias Heins. 

The early twilight was coming on, and the 
sky, obscured by those cloud masses Ruysdael 
loved to paint, acquired a greenish tinge in 
the direction of the sea. The silence was un- 
broken save for the ripple of the river against 
the shores, which had the cadence of regretful 
memories in the waning hour of day. 

The fantastic form of the old man seemed 
to pursue an erratic course. Now he paused 
to poke a pebble or some other trifling object 
with his stick, and again he hastened onward 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


15 


with a rapid striding step which evinced the 
energy of a muscular and still vigorous frame. 

At length the solitary pedestrian beheld 
before him a scene that inspired a sentiment 
of satisfaction in his breast. 

A mill, with an adjacent farmhouse, became 
visible at the bend of the road, as if conjured 
up to meet his need as a belated wanderer. 
The house was a square and heavy building, 
with dormer windows and a roof overgrown 
with rank herbage. The mill rose black 
against the sky, and the arms, with the ochre- 
tinted sail still attached, revolved, aided by a 
favorable breeze. A bridge connected the 
two structures with the highway ; and, at 
the moment, some after-glow of the hidden 
sun imparted a yellow gleam to the tranquil 
surface of the intervening canal, where roof 
and tower found a sombre and distorted reflec- 
tion. A stork’s nest crowned the chimney, 
with a perch and supports added as a wel- 
come from the household. 

Near the bridge a boy was stretched on the 
ground, with his head resting on his left hand 
and elbow, while with the right he drew a 
design on a fragment of coarse and crumpled 


16 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

paper. Unconscious of the approach of Elias 
Heins, he was gazing at the revolving wheel 
which had always possessed the charm of ir- 
resistible power and mystery to his childish 
fancy. The brass pendulum of the Dutch 
clock within doors had attracted his baby eyes, 
only to be speedily eclipsed by the wide sweep- 
ing wonder of the windmill without, forever 
turning unless checked by the miller’s hand. 
Grace of form in the outline of tower and 
wheel appealed to an artistic perception in- 
herent in the boy’s nature ; while the whirling 
aloft of arm and sail, in obedience to the 
whispered command of the wind, awoke un- 
utterable, inarticulate longings in his soul. 
The wind was wild, boisterous, mighty in 
wrath, free to sweep in from the sea, or to 
roam over the mountains. The mill was one 
of the toys set in the path of Boreas. The 
boy realized as much without being able to 
frame the thought. 

Even now, with the light fading, he could 
laugh shrilly amidst his reveries, mindful of 
the day when the house-mother had been left 
alone in this solitary spot as a bride, and a 
robber came demanding the store of gold in 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


17 


the miller’s strong-box with curses and threats 
calculated to daunt the most courageous heart. 
The bride sought refuge in the house, and re- 
fused all until she beheld the marauder creep 
through an aperture in the masonry communi- 
cating with the mill and machinery; when, 
inspired with the strength of desperation, she 
set the gear in motion. The arms of the 
engine turned, the wheel revolved on its axle, 
the minor mechanism began to palpitate, and 
the thief caught in the drum was forced to 
rotate like a rat in a trap, until he fell sense- 
less, and the miller returned to capture and 
deliver him to justice. 

Elias Heins crossed the bridge, paused be- 
side the lad, and peered over his shoulder at 
the sketch already defined on the leaf of paper. 
The drawing was a reproduction of the famil- 
iar scene before the artist ; naive, crude, full 
of faults, yet with a certain latent power per- 
ceptible in the freedom of touch. 

“ Ho, ho ! So you have made a picture of the 
mill, child ! ” remarked the intruder abruptly. 

The boy glanced up at the stranger, sprang 
to his feet, grew red with shyness or alarm, 
and replied, — 


18 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

“ I have made it a dozen times before.” 

He spoke defiantly. On more than one 
occasion the indignant miller had beaten him 
with a cudgel for loitering over a bit of paper 
instead of performing some allotted task about 
the farm and mill. In the. main a just man, 
the miller was moved to wrath by the idleness 
of the boy. Or was he glad of fitting excuse 
to his own conscience for such disapproval? 
The dog we wish to drown in this world we 
would fain pronounce mad. 

“ That is well,” said Elias Heins in his deep 
voice. “ Persevere, and you may become an 
artist. Who knows ? ” 

The old man and the boy looked at each 
other ; the former with benevolence, and the 
latter with distrust. 

The boy, tall, slender, and fair, with yellow 
hair falling over his brow, and blue eyes, ab- 
stracted in expression rather than sulky and 
indifferent, might have stood as the repre- 
sentative of the early German tribes roaming 
along the river-bank before the day of Roman 
conquest. He made no other response to the 
prophecy of Elias Heins than to lead the way 
in the direction of the mill. 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


19 


The miller stood in the door. He was a 
stout man of middle age, wearing a brown 
woollen shirt, a small cap, and smoking a long 
pipe with a porcelain bowl. 

He nodded a curt acquiescence to the pedes- 
trian’s petition to be allowed to spend the 
night beneath his roof. It was contrary to 
the miller’s custom to thus lodge any wayfarer 
the highway or river might bring to his door, 
but a swift scrutiny of the person and features 
of Elias Heins prompted the decision. 

The cosmopolitan lost no time in ingra- 
tiating himself with the domestic circle, con- 
sisting of the placid wife and rosy children. 
He readily recalled having known the miller’s 
grandfather on this very spot, and mentioned 
the circumstance with the calmness of age 
which readily bridges the lapse of years in a 
fashion startling to maturity and awe-inspiring 
to childhood. The memory of Elias Heins com- 
prised seventy years without effort, the true 
secret of his untiring energy being the active 
mind and strong will enclosed in the withered 
frame. “ He must be terribly old,” the chil- 
dren thought, “this man with the pointed nose 
and long beard.” 


20 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


When supper was served, the intruder no- 
ticed that the boy who had first greeted him 
was older by several years than the rest of 
the brood, and ate his rye-bread in silence. 
If the miller had occasion to address him, the 
good man’s tone acquired an inflection of 
severity. 

44 What is thy name ? ” demanded Elias 
Heins, inspired by curiosity. 

“ Gerard Grootz,” stammered the lad. 

The miller laughed. The wife interposed 
hurriedly. 44 Yes ; Gerard Grootz,” she assev- 
erated, with a glance at her husband which 
was at once reproachful and deprecating. 

44 He has a pretty knack of using his pen- 
cil, your eldest son,” continued Elias Heins. 
44 Perhaps you would rather see him prepared 
to succeed you in the mill than turn painter. 
Eh, my friend ? ” 

44 He will never succeed me,” retorted the 
miller in a surly tone, and once more filling 
his pipe after the evening repast was finished. 

The children tittered and whispered to- 
gether. The keen ear of the old man caught 
the taunt, 44 Gerard is a stork child.” 

44 So was I,” retorted Elias Heins, making a 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


21 


droll grimace, and winking one eye. “ Eli ! 
The stork-father brought me, one stormy 
night, in a little bundle, and placed me on the 
threshold of the mansion of a worthy citizen 
of Strasbourg. The good wife took me in, 
warmed me at the fire, and gave me some 
milk. The stork-father stood on the roof, 
and clapped his beak, well satisfied with the 
result. There is a bird well aware of what 
he is about.” 

The children ceased to ply the spoons in 
their soup-bowls, and gazed at the stranger 
with round eyes, thirsting to hear more. The 
juvenile instinct taught them that here was a 
prince of story-tellers, if minded to impart one. 
The boy Gerard did not appear to listen, but 
scanned the striking physiognomy before him 
with half-lowered eyelids. 

The house-mother again interposed ; and as 
she pressed the old man to partake of eggs 
served with the pickled onions, prawns, and 
cucumbers of the stone jars of the cupboard, 
they lingered at table, and imparted the par- 
ticulars of the boy Gerard’s simple history. 

Luise Grootz was a native of the province 
of Utrecht, while her husband, Johannes 


22 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Grootz, was a German. She had brought to 
the mill a considerable dowry,, and an ample 
store of linen ; and the interior of the farm- 
house kitchen sufficiently attested her nation- 
ality. A Holland clock from Noord stood in 
one corner ; an oak armoire, richly carved, 
held some good specimens of Delft ware ; and 
little blue tiles adorned the walls, which were 
freshly whitewashed above. The candlesticks 
on the chimney-piece, as well as the pans and 
kettles of brass and copper, were scoured to 
the polished lustre of gold. The adjacent 
dairy, with the sanded floor, possessed the 
fragrance of a spotless cleanliness, while the 
flowered counterpanes of the household be- 
trayed the Batavian instinct which would fain 
have retained the curious drawer-bed inserted 
in the wall of the Low Countries, shielded by 
curtains. 

No children had blessed the union of this 
prosperous couple during the early years of 
marriage. In the springtime, when the storks 
began to arrive from the south, Luise Grootz 
found a baby at her door. She took the waif 
to her heart, where the maternal instinct was 
awakened, and as a solace for the loneliness 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


23 


wliicli began to oppress her. No clew to the 
boy’s parentage was ever discovered ; and the 
fanciful solution that the storks had brought 
him as a gift of Heaven, became readily 
attached to his origin. 

The miller, always displeased by the intru- 
sion of this foundling on his charity and do- 
mestic circle, became still more harsh when 
his own first-born saw the light some five 
years later. 

Elias Heins, student of human nature, could 
readily supplement the remaining details of 
the history, — the unwelcome stranger-bird in 
the nest, the flagging impulse of Luise Grootz 
to defend the place of the waif long after her 
affections were concentrated on her own brood, 
the ever-increasing hostility of the rightful 
fledglings in an instinctive jealousy of the 
intruder, inherited from the father. 

The Haus-Frau talked with the old man, as 
she cleared away the dishes after supper; and 
he listened attentively, nodding his head from 
time to time. 

The boy Gerard, object of this unusual 
amount of interest and even speculation, had 
withdrawn to a corner, where he knelt behind 


24 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


a bench, and, from scrutinizing intently the 
new-comer, became absorbed in a task of 
profound interest to himself. The other chil- 
dren discovered his employment, laughed, and 
glanced furtively at Elias Heins. The miller, 
coming and going, pipe in mouth, relaxed into 
a smile of amusement. 

Elias Heins quitted his chair, and ap- 
proached the group. 

The boy, with the fragment of coarse paper 
on which he had sketched the mill, reversed, 
and using the bench for a table, was now 
boldly drawing a head. 

Elias Heins recognized himself. Possibly 
he may have experienced that sentiment of 
surprise and chagrin which we all feel at 
times, in the result of the photographer’s skill 
as embodying justice without mercy ; for the 
boy had discerned and pitilessly reproduced 
the furrows of temple and brow, the sharply 
accentuated lines at the angles of the nostrils, 
the depression of jaw and chin, as well as the 
shaggy locks of unkempt hair, and abundant 
beard. The savant beheld in that mirror of 
truth, the coarse sheet on the bench, decrepi- 
tude, poverty, loneliness, and even grim death. 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT . 


25 


. “ Ha ! My portrait,” he muttered, recoiling 
a pace. 

The children tittered, and ran away. The 
boy Gerard shook back his yellow hair, and 
looked np fearlessly, with sparkling eyes, and 
a flush on his cheek. 

“ No ! No, good sir,” he exclaimed in a 
loud and clear voice. “ This is not your 
portrait, but with a larger piece of paper I 
could do it. You understand? If I had 
time.” 

Elias Heins remained absorbed in medita- 
tion. He. recognized that a spirit-birth had 
just taken place in the kitchen of the farm- 
house, a flower had burst the calyx, a winged 
seed had become detached from the parent 
stem of circumstance. What would the 
growth develop ? He did not know. Whither 
would the gossamer sail of talent and fancy 
carry the germ? He could not discern. All 
he realized was that the young intelligence 
of an artist had taken the first step in depict- 
ing the lineaments of age. 

The next morning, when about to depart, 
he said, — 

“ Listen ! I will take the boy to Amster- 


26 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

dam, and lie shall become an artist. — What 
do you say, my child ? ” 

Gerard ran to him, and grasped his coat 
with an eager hand. The spontaneous move- 
ment of confidence gratified the old man, 
accustomed as he was to the cynicism and 
suspicions of the world. 

44 Yes ! Oh, take me with you,” entreated 
the boy. 

The miller yielded a grudging assent, after 
some debate. This sudden change of affairs 
puzzled and perplexed him. The mother 
sighed as she collected the boy’s wardrobe into 
a modest bundle, to be suspended over a stout 
stick, for the journey. Ingratitude was the 
serpent’s tooth gnawing at her maternal 
vanity. 

44 Thou art only too much rejoiced to quit 
us,” she said, amazed and wounded by 
Gerard’s impatience to be gone. 

He threw his arms around her neck, and 
embraced her. The miller’s features hardened 
once more to their habitual expression of sto- 
lidity, at this final demonstration of mutual 
affection on the part of his wife and the 
foundling. 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


27 


44 Now give me the portrait,” insisted Elias 
Heins. 

“What will you do with it?” demanded 
the miller doubtfully. 

44 This morsel of paper shall serve as Ge- 
rard’s passport to great company, my friend,” 
retorted the old man, placing the paper in a 
large pocket-book of greasy red leather. 

“ Kiss thy brothers and sisters, Gerard,” 
admonished Luise Grootz, with tears in her 
eyes ; for the waif was about to depart forget- 
ful of the ceremony. 

A soft fog of early morning brooded over 
all nature. At a few paces of distance the 
mill and the homestead alone loomed through 
the mist ; then the black tower remained de- 
tached on vapor ; and farther on, at the bend 
of path, the empty stork’s nest, ragged and 
dishevelled, was visible on the chimney, as if 
poised in the air above swathing clouds, and 
all familiar landmarks vanished. 

This autumn fog was emblematic of the 
boy’s life : infancy had been left behind, a 
blank' void, while the future was equally un- 
decided and undefined. 

, Elias Heins showed himself to be an eccen- 


28 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 

trie companion. Now he told Gerard about 
the Antwerp giant, le bon pere Antigon of pub- 
lic festivals ; and again he lapsed into moods 
of abstraction. A boy less self-absorbed or 
phlegmatic might have feared he was insane. 
Gerard scarcely heeded whether his odd bene- 
factor spoke or remained silent. 

At the outset Elias Heins had taken the lad 
by the hand, glanced over his shoulder at the 
stork’s nest, and laughed in an eerie fashion. 

“ We are both stork-children,” he said. 

“ Stork-children do not often resemble the 
rest of the world. Do you understand that, 
boy \ ” 

“ Yes,” replied Gerard slowly. 

The mists stretched ever before the trav- 
ellers, whether they journeyed on shore or by 
boat, affording glimpses of passing objects, 
fantastic, strange, and unreal as the shapes of 
dreams ; the low, hanging skies and level land- 
scapes forming the fitting background, serious 
and monotonous in tone, for a flitting sail; the 
steeples and crowding roofs of a town merging 
into sight only to be swallowed up in white 
cloud again; a vision of windmills whirling 
above a dyke ; the Chinese pavilion of some « 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


29 


suburban residence, where the ladies work, 
sip coffee and tea, and the merchant smokes 
his pipe, on summer evenings, on the brink of 
a placid canal. 

At length the boy’s astonishment culminated 
when the sun pierced the silvery veil in a 
transient magnificence of light and warmth, 
and he saw, beyond the meadows and rich 
farms, the fog gather to a semblance of dome, 
masts, and gables. There rose the Dutch 
Venice, Amsterdam, beneath a sky of pearly 
gray and blue tints ; and across the water 
floated the muffled note of a bell. 

Elias Heins landed with his protege, and 
made his way to one of the dark and narrow 
streets near the synagogues, where he selected 
a modest lodging. 

Gerard did not sleep that night. His pulses 
throbbed with feverish rapidity, and the blood 
surged from his heart to his brain. 

He beheld again the quays, the shipping, 
the drawbridges of the town, with the high 
pitched roofs, church towers, the cupola of 
the royal palace, the bastions, and the shining 
Amstel, while faces of a bewildering variety 
of types clustered about his pillow. He heard 


30 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

a confused medley of voices, the cries of 
weather-beaten sailors and laborers of the 
port, mingled with the laughter of peasant- 
girls, wearing straw hats and coral beads, who 
brought milk from the country ; the call of 
venders ; the word of command uttered by the 
captain of one of those water diligences, the 
Treychuit , standing on the deck as the craft, 
skirting the flowers of many a bank between 
lush meadows where the cattle feed, paused 
amidst the steamers and ships, prepared to 
voyage to distant latitudes. 

A low, monotonous sound, underlying these 
more sharply emphasized phases of city life, 
resolved into the humming of the mill-wheel 
at home ; and Gerard was finally soothed to 
uneasy slumber by the familiar cradle-song of 
his infancy. 

The next morning Elias Heins went out, 
leaving his charge seated at a window. 

Familiar with Amsterdam, the old man met 
a diamond-merchant, who wished to show him 
a rare Brazilian stone on which his best work- 
man had been engaged for four months, with 
an ardor amounting to true passion, in perfect- 
ing the gem. Elias Heins took the limpid 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


81 


star, twinkling with rainbow reflections, in his 
own palm, gazed long at it, and hazarded a 
conjecture as to the value of the brilliant: 
“ Three thousand florins.” 

“ Five thousand,” affirmed the merchant. 

Elias Heins passed on with a shrug of the 
shoulders. Next he had a long interview 
with the director of a museum ; and when he 
finally extricated himself from the crowd of 
the Bourse, to return to his lodging, hours had 
already elapsed. He had forgotten the fel- 
low stork-child taken under his protection. 
Had Gerard been a half-effaced manuscript, a 
medallion, a weapon of the lacustrine races, 
a specimen of copper or iron ore, he would 
have had a better chance of remembrance with 
his new friend. 

The boy made no complaint ; he sat at the 
small casement of the chamber, like one en- 
tranced. All the pictures which would have 
fed a childhood keenly perceptive of beauty, 
grace, and ugliness, in mere book outline, were 
crowded into this single morning at a window 
of Amsterdam. 

Below, the crowd came and went through 
the low doorways, and surged along the 


32 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

streets, which extended narrow, crooked, and 
black in. all directions. The houses leaned 
forward, as if in support of each other, on 
their foundations of piles from the forests of 
Norway ; and seemed to verify the assertion 
of Erasmus, that the inhabitants dwell like 
crows in the tree-tops. Heads were visible at 
the windows, full of originality and vitality. 
Here an old woman adjusted a line of rags to 
dry, with a shrill clamor at a neighbor ; there 
a girl with an Oriental profile, and black hair 
gathered in a classical knot low on the neck, 
toyed with a flower. 

Above, the quaint gables, towers, and roofs 
rose against the misty sky, with the tall chim- 
neys of the diamond-cutter craft. 

Beyond the labyrinth of by-ways, a canal 
flowed along with several sails unfurled, red 
and brown. 

No, the boy Gerard was not lonely, with all 
these novel objects on which to feed eye and 
imagination. 

Elias Heins started when his glance fell on 
the silent figure. 

66 .What age have you \ ” he demanded sud- 
denly. 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


33 


“ Fifteen years,” replied Gerard. 

“ Diable ! as old as that ! ” muttered the old 
man. He paced the room several times, 
paused, smoothed his beard meditatively, 
stared at the boy a moment, and then said 
briefly, — 

44 Come with me.” 

Gerard obeyed, and they sought a large 
mansion on the Kalverstrasse. The stately 
and massive proportions of the house, with its 
pilasters, arcades, wide casements terminating 
in an arch above, and vestibule filled with 
flowering shrubs, bore evidence of the worldly 
prosperity of the owner. 

44 Tell Meinheer Van Limburg that Elias 
Heins wishes to see him,” was the peremptory 
announcement of the old man in his ragged 
coat, leading a boy of unmistakably rustic 
aspect by the hand. 

The servant admitted the strange pair after 
a short delay. 

The interior of the* house was even more 
sumptuous than the exterior seemed to war- 
rant: yet Elias Ileins followed the servant 
through court and corridor paved with tessel- 
lated tiles, and lustrous with polished woods, 


84 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

in no wise abashed by his own contrasting 
poverty. Nor did he vouchsafe a glance in 
passing the richly wrought balustrade of a 
stairway; the hangings of Indian stuffs re- 
vealing chambers hung with Cordova leather, 
and furnished with ebony cabinets, jars, and 
vases ; the embrasures in which hyacinths blos- 
somed. 

Meinheer Van Limburg was a self-made 
man, and a ship-owner, whose portrait might 
have been painted like that of the worthy 
citizen Osterlen, as pointing complacently to 
ninety- two vessels as his own property. Jacob 
Van Limburg could not boast that he had in- 
herited the tapestries, jewels, satins, and musi- 
cal instruments of his house, from a Spanish 
ancestry, any more than the silver plate, the 
antique glass in heavy decanter and long- 
stemmed vases, and the specimens of Fries- 
land goldsmith work, from a Dutch origin.. * 
Nevertheless, it might be said of him, as of 
his country, that Norway was his forest, the 
banks of the Rhine and the Garonne his vine- 
yard, Pomerania and Prussia his cornfields, 
the Orient his garden. He also, in the Span- 
ish estimation, was “ a spider of the seas,” 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT . 


85 


bringing from Persia pearls, turquoises, silver 
tissues, Caramanian wool ; from China, enam- 
els and porcelain ; from the kingdom of Pegu, 
gold, lac, rubies, and sapphires ; from the 
Coromandel coast, elephants’ tusks, tin, lead, 
and precious woods ; from Arabia, gums, cas- 
sia, myrrh, aloes ; while the arctic seas yielded 
him their harvest of whale-oil; the Cape of 
Good Hope, wheat ; and Dutch Guiana, cocoa, 
sugar, bananas, and tamarinds. 

Twenty years of absence in Java in his 
youth had not rendered him less loyal to the 
mother country. He still retained his place 
in the counting-room, and managed his own 
affairs with prudence and sagacity. In public 
life he had aided munificently in the great 
work of cutting through the North Holland 
Canal, and he disapproved of rival Rotterdam. 
He read aloud the poems of Jacob Cats on a 
winter evening, in his family circle, with un- 
impaired relish of appreciation. His collection 
of Japanese porcelain, comprising some two 
thousand specimens, was unrivalled in grace 
of design and originality, while adhering to 
the national standard of taste in the blue tints 
of coloring. 


36 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

The merchant received Elias Heins with a 
certain good-humored whimsicality of manner. 
Either by chance or premeditation, he re- 
sembled the old Holland type. Clad in dark 
raiment, his face was heavy and highly colored, 
and he smoked a pipe with a long, slender 
stem. 

The room he occupied was sombre in hue, 
having furniture of massive oak studded with 
gilt nails, and a projecting chimney of medi- 
aeval design representing in sculptured relief 
the Holy Scriptures as a woman seated in a 
car, surrounded by the Four Evangelists on 
foot, with Justice on the right holding scales 
and sword, supported by Minerva, and Neptune 
on the left. 

64 So you return once more, friend Elias 
Heins,” was the greeting of the rich man. 
44 Do you come from Egypt, or Lapland, this 
time ? ” 

Elias Heins laughed waggishly. 

46 Why not from Patagonia ? ” he retorted. 

44 What have you brought me % ” continued 
the merchant. 44 The Vatican Virgil, for ex- 
ample? Well, I will take it on your own 
terms, miser.” 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT . 


37 


Elias Heins glanced enviously in the direc- 
tion of a well-stored library, where he was 
aware that the host treasured even a work 
by a Japanese author, written in the Dutch 
language of two centuries ago. 

“I have brought you this boy,” he said, 
after a pause. 

Meinheer Van Limburg scrutinized Gerard, 
who stood before him, abashed and bewildered 
by the splendor of this abode, and believed 
himself to be the dupe of some enchantment. 

“ The boy possesses talent, then ] ” queried 
the host, slightly compressing his lips. 

46 Why, as to that, I believe if you lea,d a 
horse to the fountain, and he thirsts, he will 
drink,” retorted the old man, with a sly ex- 
pression. 44 There, boy, go and amuse your- 
self among the pictures while we talk together 
about matters that do not interest one of your 
age.” 

He placed a hand on Gerard’s shoulder, 
and pushed him into the next apartment ; but, 
instead of returning to his former position, 
drew together the damask hangings, and mo- 
tioned to the merchant to join him in observing 
the movements of the novice thus unexpectedly 


38 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

introduced into a shrine of art. At the same 
moment he took the folded sheet of paper 
from his pocket-book, and displayed the rough 
sketch of his own features. 

Meinheer Van Limburg would have been 
displeased by similar familiarity of bearing in 
one less eccentric and inconsequent than his 
odd visitor; but he now consented to peep 
through the screen of draperies, and watch 
the boy. 

Gerard found himself in a long and lofty 
picture-gallery. A Stadholder of Holland 
looked down upon him with grave severity of 
contemplation. Prince Maurice, with a silk 
scarf crossed over his corslet of mail, rested 
his right hand on the hilt of his sword. , Johan 
van Oldenbarneveld laid his white head on 
the block of the scaffold, proclaiming his 
innocence of the charge of treason. 

On either side of the door a picture arrested 
the attention of a new-comer, as emblematic 
of the struggle for existence in the country. 

On the right, in the March weather, the 
Rhine, bursting the ice-barrier of winter with 
terrible power, had overflowed the land ; and 
a solitary boat, filled with terrified women and 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


39 


children, floated above the submerged houses 
and trees. A ray of sunshine trembled 
athwart the masses of rock and ice, and a 
flock of ducks enhanced the melancholy deso- 
lation of the scene. 

On the left, in the March weather, lashed 
by the west wind, the furious waves surged 
up on the shore between Ostend and Haarlem, 
devouring the sand-banks, and destroying even 
the tawny vegetation of the dunes., the hardy 
broom, thyme, and heath. 

Gerard studied these two works with frown- 
ing attention. Their meaning, fruit of a vig- 
orous brush, was clear to his perception. The 
sweet and the salt waters, in perpetual war, 
disputed possession of the Low Countries. 
The Rhine, in ebbing, would enrich by the 
deposit of fresh soil, while the mission of 
the bitter sea was to devastate and annihilate. 

Beyond, twin ranks of national subjects, 
treated by national artists, charmed the eye. 
The merchant had gathered to adorn his home 
valuable works of Rubens, Vandyck, Wouver- 
mans, Paul Potter, Holbein, Cranach, Hob- 
bema, Ostade, and Mieris, as well as Jan 
Steen and Teniers. 


40 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Here a spirited naval engagement attracted 
him, such as the destruction of the Spanish 
fleet in the Zuyder-Zee by the Admiral Cornells 
Dirkszoon ; there the maidens of Edam, trav- 
ersing the inundated meadows to carry fresh 
water to their cows, in a boat, caught a siren 
clad in green moss and shells, in a fisherman’s 
net. Again, some tranquil landscape of a silent 
town, with towers and steeples and an ancient 
castle ruin, seen in an atmosphere of pearly- 
gray sea and sky, soft as the sheen of a satin 
robe, found contrast in an adjacent night view, 
with storm-birds driven before the tempest, 
and the ruddy beam of a light-house casting 
a gleam of hope over the seething brine 
below. 

The Eubens, an allegory of war, glowed 
with all the richness of the master’s hand in 
breadth of design and solid coloring. Oppo- 
site, a work by Ferdinand Bol evinced credit- 
able emulation in the harmonious management 
of light, and lost little by such crucial propin- 
quity to true greatness. 

The boy advanced slowly, step by step, lost 
in amazement, doubt, and delight. The ob- 
jects about him were so novel, incredible, and 


A VENETIAN PORTRAIT. 


41 


beautiful, that he believed himself dreaming 
rather than awake, or to have passed into 
another state of being by some swift and inex- 
plicable transition. 

The gallery terminated in an alcove lighted 
by a glass dome above. 

This alcove held one picture, which was 
draped with Gobelin tapestry of the seven- 
teenth century adorned with mythological 
scenes of nymphs and goddesses. A Vene- 
tian chandelier, wreathed with garlands of 
pale crystal flowers of amber and opalescent 
tints, like the ephemeral sparkle of sea-foam 
on pearly shells, hung in the centre. 

When Gerard beheld this chandelier, so 
fragile and exquisite that it seemed fashioned 
of ice and hoar-frost, and about to melt and 
vanish in a warm breath, he paused spell- 
bound. 

Then his gaze fell on the canvas. 

A man stood in the foreground of the pic- 
ture, enveloped in a velvet robe bordered with 
fur, having on his head a curiously shaped 
cap, and holding in his fingers a string of 
great amber beads. In the background, be- 
yond the marble arch of palace vestibule, were 




42 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

visible the domes, towers, and canals of a city, 
faintly outlined in the soft gray mists of per- 
vading atmosphere. 

The man, in the prime of a splendid vital- 
ity, with olive-tinted skin, lustrous hair escap- 
ing from the cap, nose like an eagle’s beak, 
and mobile, passionate lips, turned his stately 
head on the full column of bronzed throat, as 
if to fix a piercing glance on the visitor. 

To Gerard the figure moved, thrilled, seemed 
to speak ; and then a white cloud swept before 
him, and he knew no more. 

The two spectators hastened forward. 

“ The boy has a true soul of an artist,” 
Meinheer Van Limburg conceded, as Elias 
Heins raised the head of Gerard on his knee 
on the spot where he had fallen. 

“ Humph ! he has taken little food to-day,” 
was his sententious response. 

“ He shall have both food and wine,” said 
the kind host. 

Elias Heins glanced at the picture beneath 
his shaggy brows. 

“ What have you there 1 ” he demanded. 

64 A Venetian portrait.” 


THE SEA CITY , . 


43 


CHAPTER IT. 

THE SEA CITY. 

Five years later, a young stranger readied 
Venice. 

This youth was Gerard Grootz, the stork- 
child of the mill on the Rhine, picked up by 
an eccentric savant. 

Many a destiny is shaped by standing in the 
path of opportunity. 

Autumn, warm, rich, and luxuriant, had 
visited the land. The vintage had ripened 
for the plucking, while the heart of man re- 
joiced over the promised abundance of the 
year ; when a fortnight of scirrocco sweeping 
in from the Adriatic brought such torrents of 
rain that the rivers Adige and Brenta surged 
in volumes of tawny-brown water, bursting 
their banks, and had flooded the vineyards 
and maize-fields, spreading a wide desolation. 
The entire Veneto was overwhelmed by the 
disaster. Pinching hunger confronted the 


44 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

people in the devastated districts ; fever and 
cold threatened the damp, half-submerged 
dwellings, with their naked hearthstone. 

The sun shone forth once more between 
heavy masses of cloud, after the storm, as if 
laughing at the ruin of farm and field ; and 
the hedgerows were full of flowers, — roses 
pale pink and deep crimson, purple altelle, and 
convolvulus. 

Here a shattered straw hut, built on the 
embankment above the margin of rushes and 
willows, marked the shelter of a watchman 
set to patrol the rising stream day and night. 
There a van had been drawn up by the road- 
side, and a man with bare feet- was treading 
out the red juice of some rescued grapes in a 
vat, while the oxen quietly chewed the cud. 

Farther on, the piers and buttresses of a 
sunken bridge rose in the eddying current, 
and boats crossed the river, freighted with 
golden sheaves of Indian corn, to a spot where 
the grain was piled; sorry gleaning of the 
sultry summer’s promised abundance. 

On the Austrian frontier, a brown peasant- 
girl thrust a bunch of grapes into the window 
of the railway-carriage, with a coaxing en- 


THE SEA CITY. 


45 


treaty to buy the fruit. Gerard Grootz had 
received the fragrant cluster of amber globes, 
garnering Italian sunshine, with crumpled and 
withered leaves attached to the stem, as a 
welcome from the land beyond the Alpine 
gateway. 

He had come to Italy as Rubens, Vandyck, 
and Albert Diirer once journeyed hither. Un- 
like the former, he was furnished with no 
introduction to Duke Vincenzio Gonzaga of 
Mantua, wherewith to gain additional fame, 
and make collections of medals, coins, and 
intaglios for the sumptuous Antwerp house 
erected on the ground granted by the guild of 
arquebusiers. He was poor and unknown; 
perhaps he lacked the gifts of these renowned 
predecessors. 

The train crept slowly along a recently 
mended track, affording glimpses of green 
country, acacias, and chestnut woods stretch- 
ing away to the mountain peaks. Ancient 
towns, perched on spur and ridge above the 
general ruin, came into sight, and were again 
left behind, their towers soaring up from 
church, piazza, and arched gateway. Below, 
the opaque waters coiled in sluggish pools, 


46 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


or spread over the entire country-side, with 
crumbling homesteads toppling into the tide 
in hopeless abandonment of wreck. Then 
there was wafted in the window a salt breath 
of breeze, which stirred the hair on the brow 
of the young artist ; and he discerned, in the 
distance, a haze with a faint shimmer of dome 
and tower, gleaming through the silvery vapor, 
as in the portrait of the Van Limburg gallery. 
The breeze came, fresh and pure, from the 
sea ; the city was Venice on her gray lagoons. 

Gerard Grootz quitted the prosaic station, 
and sought a modest inn, the Mezza-Luna, 
situated in the eastern portion of the town. 

An old man waited at the steps to bring 
the gondola to shore by means of his hook. 

He doffed his wide felt hat to receive the 
customary fee ; and the wind played with the 
picturesque rags in which he was enveloped, 
revealing a chain and a charm suspended about 
his neck, while the sunshine sparkled on the 
instrument of his calling, — the ganzo , — with 
handle decked profusely with bits of mosaic, 
a cameo, several coins of the Republic, a medal 
of Pius IX., and one of the silver osele of the 
Venetian Doges. 


THE SEA CITY. 


47 


Gerard bestowed an alms on the patriarch, 
whose fine head pleased his eye. Indeed, he 
i experienced the naive surprise felt by every 
traveller, under similar cricumstances, who 
believes he tastes a novel emotion for the first 
time in the world. The attendant gondola 
I had glided gently with him along the Grand 
Canal, and he had realized : — 

“There is a glorious city in the sea ; 

The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, 
Ebbing and flowing, and the salt seaweed 
Clings to the marble of her palaces.” 

Near the hooker, or crab, stood a dwarf, 
with a large head, a whimsical physiognomy, 
and a pair of sharp black eyes which inspected 
the stranger keenly, as then* owner humbly 
begged for a few coppers, thus echoing the 
old man’s whining petition. 

Gerard, depositing his slender stock of lug- 
gage in the chamber assigned to him, was 
served with a frugal breakfast in a vine-cov- 
ered pergola of the neglected garden. 

A party of gondolier e were feasting at an 
adjacent table, in celebration of a baptism ; 
and the landlord of the Mezza-Luna ministered 


48 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

his best wines to these noisy and merry guests, 
in his shirt-sleeves, while a cook appeared in 
an adjacent doorway from time to time, — a 
rubicund priest presiding over the fish and 
fowl frizzling in oil on the altar of hotel 
sacrifice. 

Gerard forgot to eat, in absorbed contempla- 
tion of this new type of humanity : the men 
bronzed, vigorous, with curling black hair and 
white teeth, their movements betraying sturdy 
independence and quick temper ; the women 
vivacious and handsome, with handkerchiefs 
of red and yellow tints knotted around their 
necks, and strings of coral beads or chains of 
fine gold depending over the breast. 

The sky was serenely blue, and the ambient 
atmosphere full of some quickening and hith- 
erto unknown impulse of joy and life. Beyond 
the boundary-wall, a church-tower rose in a 
slender shaft of red and white marbles, which 
glistened with rosy reflections ; and a flock of 
snowy pigeons circled about the parapet. 

The scene and the hour caught up the soul 
of this young pilgrim in sudden, inexpressible 
rapture, even as the birds cleft the radiant air 
on strong, outspread pinions. 


THE SEA CITY. 


49 


He left the table, and passed through the 
low corridor of the osteria out into the 
campo. 

The revellers of the garden glanced at the 
full wine-flask and untasted food, with ready 
gibe at the moonstruck bearing of the for- 
eigner ; while the landlord prudently gathered 
together the viands, and returned them to the 
larder. 

In the campo the old hooker and the dwarf 
waylaid Gerard. The manikin, in mingled 
French and English, tendered his own services 
as cicerone. The patriarch knew intimately 
a gondolier e, who was an honest man, and 
would take the signore about Venice as no 
other of the craft could. 

Gerard, framing shyly his first faltering 
sentences of Italian, declined both overtures. 

Foiled, the dwarf seated himself on a flight 
of mouldy steps, and clasped his hands about 
his knee. The patriarch in the ragged cloak 
leaned on his staff, and grumbled in his 
beard, — 

“ The son of a dog prefers to walk.” 

“ Patience, grandfather,” rejoined the dwarf, 
with a swift glance over his shoulder at the 


50 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

inn. “ He must come back to us sooner or 
later.” 

The artist wished to lose himself in the 
labyrinth of byways opening before him, to 
scan the features of the town, and probe her 
secrets, as he could not do in a gliding boat. 
He followed the narrowest fissures of calli 
between lofty buildings in the shadow of over- 
hanging balconies, and deeply carved door- 
ways, and became entangled in the most 
tortuous mazes of bridge and passage, without 
reference to guiding clew of white stone as 
marking the route to Rialto. 

Now he emerged on a quay thronged with 
sailors, and where the sea gathered her varied 
craft : Dalmatian coasters freighted with wine ; 
bragozzi laden with the night’s fishing, a 
weathercock sparkling at the mast-head, and 
wide-spreading sails, orange and brown, dis- 
playing such devices as Titian’s Madonna of 
the Assumption, or flying angels ; the penin- 
sular steamers jetting forth columns of smoke 
from their funnels ; and the tiny sandolo darting 
aci'oss the canal like an insect. 

Hours elapsed while Gerard, silent and en- 
tranced, watched these sails detach from shore, 


THE SEA CITY. 


51 


inflate before the wind, and slip away over the 
gray waters to the verge of the horizon. 

Then he rambled on, a turn bringing him 
in the midst of a fish-market ; cuttles such as 
the Greek sailors once sacrificed to the sea- 
gods, heaped with crabs and shrimps, and the 
quivering life of sturgeon, tench, pike, eels, or 
barbel. Nasal venders besieged him to buy 
necklaces made of the tiny iridized shells 
gleaned from the weeds about Murano, as 
fior-di-mare , Liliputian turtles, and pearly 
valves fashioned into portemonnaies. 

A canal beyond, deep jade-green in shadow, 
laved the steps of a church, with open portal 
revealing glimpses of a mosaic dome, columns 
of jasper and alabaster, and a gilded altar 
where tapers gleamed in the rich obscurity, 
and clouds of incense floated about the carved 
chancel stalls. 

The artist discovered everywhere the out- 
ward expression of a love of color in the 
people with whom he now mingled; in the 
marble mouldings and panels of arch and cor- 
tile, veined with amethyst, purple, and Egyp- 
tian porphyry; in the vivid scarlet tint of a 
vine swaying in the breeze from the sculptured 


52 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

urn of a garden wall ; in the glow of crimson 
lamps before a wayside shrine ; in the fruit 
piled in luscious abundance in the dingiest 
shop, or the pot of pitch in the shed of the 
gondola-builder, with dusky workmen coming 
and going beneath the low russet-brown roof. 

In all these scenes, strange, vivid, and ex- 
quisitely beautiful, Gerard sought an object he 
did not find. The sense of loss and vague 
disappointment gained upon him, and op- 
pressed his spirit. His limbs grew weary, his 
head heavy, and his mood, buoyant to the 
verge of intoxication at the outset, now de- 
pressed and sad. Loneliness, languor, profound 
discouragement, clogged his movements, and 
chilled the warm impulse of hope recently 
born in his breast. In this extremity of inde- 
cision, amounting to weakness, he evoked the 
familiar images of boyhood, but the effort 
brought no re-action. Spent, dejected, de- 
spairing, he moved across the piazzetta 
mechanically. 

The glory of sunset had transfigured the 
Sea City on her margin of sands. The sky 
flamed to crimson where the clouds gathered 
in threatening masses above the Euganean 


THE SEA CITY . 


53 


Hills ; the pearly waters warmed to rose and 
gold ; while the domes of churches, the fagades 
of palaces, the spanning bridges, caught the 
glow on stained fresco, sparkling mosaic, and 
the mellow brick of portal, embrasure, and 
balcony. 

A clang of bells smote the ear, vibrating 
and echoing in a sudden tumult of sound that 
shook the towers, and made the air pulsate, 
then died away to silence again. 

The young pilgrim found himself, almost 
without volition, in the precincts of St. Mark’s, 
at a moment when the apse was one blaze of 
gold in the western sunlight. His mind was 
no longer capable of clearly and firmly grasp- 
ing facts. The city seemed unreal, fantastic, a 
mirage sprung from the lagoon. The interior 
of the church was sumptuous, overwhelming, 
yet intangible. 

A woman emerged from the gloom of a re- 
mote corner, and paused in 'the flood of yellow 
light while a companion knelt at a side altar. 

This woman, young and majestic in bearing, 
neither prayed nor bowed her head, but stood 
with hands clasped, gazing into space, ab- 
sorbed in her own painful meditations. The 


54 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

golden mist of sunshine, and the golden radi- 
ance of mosaic and altar, shed a transitory 
magnificence over her raiment, converting 
mere flimsy stuff into glistening tissues, and 
defined the beauty of low brow, black hair, 
and olive pallor, even as the sunset was glori- 
fying the city by a warm effulgence of color. 

Gerard Grootz halted, and looked at her. 
She was a vision, vivid, unexpected, dark, even 
threatening, such as Heine beheld when listen- 
ing to Paganini’s playing, reclining on a couch 
in a chamber decorated a la Pompadour , with 
little mirrors and cupids, amidst a graceful and 
harmonious confusion of Chinese porcelain, 
flowers, and lace. 

For a moment the woman stood thus, then 
turned away, and disappeared. 

Gerard did not attempt to follow and detain 
her. A sudden thrill swept over his body. 
He had found the missing clew. The woman, 
by her very presence, in crossing the luminous 
space of church, had supplied the want, and 
filled his soul with contentment. She was the 
embodiment of the Venice he sought, Greek, 
Byzantine, Benaissant, holding the gorgeous 
East in hostage, and safeguard of the West, 


THE SEA CITY. 


55 


emblem of fading glories and past strength. 
He drank deeply of the mystical draught of 
inspiration she seemed to proffer him in pass- 
ing, and was refreshed. 

Night found Gerard at a cafe remote from 
the inn of the Mezza-Luna. 

He entered a gondola, and glided away with 
a ghostly celerity through the twilight. Dark- 
ness was already stealing softly over the waters, 
while the horizon retained the pale transpar- 
ency of beryl and chrysoprase hues against 
which the masts and spars of the shipping 
were defined in delicate yet sharp relief of 
outline. The lights of the piazza shed a lumi- 
nous track across the canal, and illuminated 
the church of San Giorgio Maggiore opposite. 

Suddenly a fleet of boats swept into view 
from the sombre depths of palace wall, their 
garlands of tinted lamps swaying like tremu- 
lous blossoms blown about by the wind. 

In the midst was a galley, with a statue of 
Fame at the prow, and draperies of silk and 
azure crfye, silvei -fringed, rippling down to 
the water. Guided by gondoliere in ancient 
livery of slashed doublet, silken hose, and 
plumed hat, the craft shimmered and sparkled 


56 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


with trophies of Venetian glass, ruby and 
opal. 

The pageant was a serenade in honor of 
a prince travelling incognito ; and when the 
music ceased, a discreet patter of applause from 
a balcony testified the approbation of the royal 
party. Then the orchestra breathed forth 
fresh strains of Wagner, Verdi, and Donizetti ; 
the lights shifted from pink and blue to emer- 
ald fires, with starry reflections ; and the crowd 
of spectators on quay, bridge, and in throng- 
ing boats, burst into a rapture of responsive 
admiration. 

Surely here was an expiring gleam of former 
magnificent hospitality, in keeping with the 
faded loveliness of the city ; or were the tinsel 
draperies and cheap lamps to be accepted as 
emblematic of modern and inevitable change ] 

The prince on the balcony yonder, a stout 
and commonplace gentleman in a black coat, 
had arrived in the coupe of a daily train, in- 
stead of on board of a galley manned by four 
hundred oarsmen, and followed by other craft 
resplendent with tapestries, armor, and cloth 
of gold, as King Henry III. of France once 
came, sweeping past the Arch of Triumph at 


THE SEA CITY. 


57 


San Nicold del Lido, designed by Palladio, and 
painted by Tintoretto and Paul Veronese. 

The queen, a cheerful and dumpy little 
woman in an ulster and brown straw hat, has 
been sketching on the lagoons all day, instead 
of appearing in state jewels on the Bucintoro, 
in company with the Doge and Dogaressa, like 
Bianca, bride of Francesco Sforza. 

The Tunisian ambassadors, in cream-colored 
burnous and fez, have come to witness the 
launching of an iron-plated corvette, and fetch 
the king some Arab steeds, with ultimate pro- 
ject of establishing a line of steamers between 
Tunis and Italian ports ; instead of being feted 
by the Venetian Republic for three months, as 
were the Tartar emissaries of bygone centu- 
ries, and laden with gifts of swords, pearls, 
brocade, and velvet, for the Great Mogul. 

Gerard Grootz, by a supple turn of the oar, 
was swept on to peaceful stillness and deser- 
tion along the Giudecca shore. The stars 
gleamed in the sky far above him, and a mist 
rose from the sea, gradually obliterating the 
islands, and rendering vague the outline of 
the city. He was alone in the darkness of 
the Southern night. 


58 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Later, the dwarf plucked the grandfather’s 
cloak. Both were crouching on a flight of 
steps, loath to seek the hole they called a 
home, as long as neighbors were abroad. The 
old hooker (pfiovanni nodded drowsily. The 
dwarf Pippo, alert, wiry, and bright-eyed, 
munched a morsel of piave bread. 

“ The stranger is coming back,” said the 
manikin, arousing his companion to profes- 
sional duties. 

The old man stumbled to his feet with a 
muttered curse. 

“ He’s not much good,” was his comment, 
as the gondola approached. 

Pippo raised his nose in the air with a 
movement full of mockery and assurance. 
Seated in the shadow of the archway at mid- 
night, he looked like a fit instrument of the 
Venetian Inquisition, born too late by a cen- 
tury or two, to glide near, with hint and artful 
innuendo, and place the poisoned shaft of 
calumny in the hand capable of using it. 

“ As to that, granddaddy, we shall see to- 
morrow what can be done with this artist,” 
was his dignified response. 

Gerard entered the inn, and sought the 


THE SEA CITY . 


59 


small chamber assigned to him at an earlier 
hour. 

He unfastened his portmanteau, scattered 
about his modest store of clothing and linen, 
and opened, with a certain lingering affection, 
the painters portfolio, which contained a few 
sketches. In these leaves, fragmentary, hasty, 
incomplete, he read clearly the history of his 
own life. 

Old Elias Heins, first benefactor, had van- 
ished almost as swiftly as the mill and home- 
stead of the Rhine bank in the fog of the 
autumu morning ; leaving, as a tangible sub- 
stitute, that more substantial embodiment of 
active benevolence, Jacob Van Limburg. One 
may readily imagine Elias Heins laughing in 
his sleeve at such clever manipulation of 
humanity, as he flew off at a tangent in the 
direction of Courland before winter closed 
in. 

Jacob Van Limburg had experienced a 
lively interest in the rustic lad, who swooned 
in the first ecstasy of beholding the treasures 
of his picture-gallery. In this naive tribute 
to the judgment of an amateur, the merchant 
scorned to discern the bewilderment of an 


60 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

awakened intelligence, and the weakness of 
an empty stomach. 

He had personally conducted Gerard to the 
fountain source of an art-school, where the boy 
studied with ardor, following the course pre- 
scribed by the master with docile obedience, 
and maintaining an individuality amidst a class 
of jovial comrades, fond of the tavern, pipe, 
and bowl, of an evening, as Adrian Brauwer 
and Jan Steen had been in their time. 

“ Unconventional,” was the doubtful verdict 
of the master, a dry person, learned in all the 
technicalities of instruction, and prudent about 
quitting well-ordained boundaries of limitation, 
either in subject or treatment. 

“A stupid fellow,” was the judgment of the 
jolly fellow-students, irritated by Gerard’s pru- 
deqge as much as his cold indifference to their 
pastimes. 

In the fourth year, Gerard had become 
moody, restless, intractable. He begged per- 
mission to haunt the Van Limburg gallery, 
and remained for hours with haggard features 
and idle fingers, questioning the Venetian por- 
trait. 

Giorgione was the artist who had painted 


THE SEA CITY. 


61 


that head, replete with pride, distinction, and 
elegance. Who was Giorgione \ Venice was 
the city delineated in the background of the 
picture, with the domes and palaces swathed 
in soft mists. Where was Venice'? Gior- 
gione and Venice ! These two magical words 
formed the chord of deep meaning in the 
great symphony of art and color to which 
the youth dedicated himself soul and body. 
His ignorance of all matters outside of the 
walls of a studio was profound. His mind 
represented a range of notes, beyond which, 
at either extremity, is immeasurable void and 
silence. He relegated all the other works of 
the gallery, with a disdain as capricious as it 
was unmerited, — the golden and peaceful 
landscapes of Ostade and Cuyp, the gloomy 
skies of Ruysdael, the careful brush of Metzu 
in depicting aristocratic surroundings to the 
rank of William Kalf’s still-life, and the flower- 
studies of John Van Huysum, or David de 
Heem. 

Giorgione and Venice! Meinheer Van 
Limburg, again whimsically observant of this 
silent protege , read the troubled longing in 
the boy’s blue eyes, — to go there, to yonder 


62 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Sea City ! To become, like him, the genius 
of Castelfranco ! 

The merchant meditated. How many eager 
young aspirants of fame had pressed panting 
towards the same goal of fulfilment, before 
Gerard Grootz ! How many more will arise 
with succeeding generations to tread the same 
path ! Hid the benefactor believe in the abil- 
ity of Gerard ? Not too much. The seed had 
laid dormant in a favorable soil of study and 
opportunity, without yielding fruit. Meinheer 
Van Limburg assured his own self-esteem that 
he had truly given the youth the same advan- 
tages as the melons and grapes of his hot- 
houses. 

“ Your genius seems to me to be only a 
stupid boy,” remarked the merchant’s wife on 
more than one occasion. 

Madame Van Limburg was a stout lady, 
invariably attired in rustling silks, satins, and 
brocade, and much interested in orphan-asy- 
lums and other works of charity. 

The merchant thereupon made a compro- 
mise between domestic disapproval and per- 
sonal scepticism of talent. He gave Gerard 
a commission to paint the portrait of his eldest 


THE SEA, CITY. 


63 


daughter, then a blooming maiden of eighteen 
years. 

The novice accepted the task with feverish 
alacrity. He placed his model in a casement 
embowered in plants, with several jars filled 
with tulips in the background, and in the act 
of peeping into one of those adjustable mir- 
rors which reflect the street. 

Rachel Van Limburg was amiable, impres- 
sionable, and romantic in temperament. The 
artist craved human sympathy ; and his nature 
began to unfold like the sensitive-plants, with 
leaves previously coiled on the defensive, in 
the presence of the blond-haired occupant of 
the window. 

One day the father, prompted by his wife 
and Rachel’s governess, decided that the 
maiden had gazed into the mirror, and the 
painter at her features, quite long enough. 

The result was a study, fresh and charming, 
if a trifle mannered in the adjustment of the 
drapery. Madame Van Limburg pursed up 
her lips, and contemplated the completed por- 
trait in silence. The dame de compagnie shook 
her head, and scrutinized the artist askance. 
Meinheer Van Limburg paid Gerard a suffi- 


64 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


cient sum for the work to take him to Venice, 
and maintain him there for a year. After 
such a term of probation the fledgeling must 
try his own wings in self-support, and make a 
career for himself. 

Rache.l Van Limburg burst into tears when 
she was informed that the picture was destined 
for a gift of her intended husband, a banker 
of Antwerp, and wrote a pathetic little poem 
about the withered flowers of the embrasure 
where she had dreamed so long, — an effusion 
destroyed before her wedding-day. 

Casement and occupant faded from the 
memory of Gerard Grootz. If to forget is 
the strength of great souls, he possessed the 
trait in an eminent degree. His nature was 
the plant absorbing all the dew and sunshine 
of bounty in his fellow-creatures in a ready 
assimilation. Thus the journey had been un- 
dertaken with joyful elation and ardent antici- 
pation, hope lending wings to his feet. In 
the Sea City he would find power of utterance. 
In the Sea City he would commence to live. 

The artist thrust aside his portfolio with a 
sigh, and sought his pillow. Years before, 
when Elias Heins had taken him to Amster- 
















THE SEA CITY . 


65 


dam, the novel objects seen during the day 
crowded his brain, and deprived him of repose. 
Sleep did not come to him more readily now. 

He rose, and went to the window. He 
wished to assure himself that the Sea City had 
not vanished from sight. 

The night, at the hour before dawn, was 
weird, solemn, melancholy. Beyond the 
bridges and quays was the wide expanse of 
sea and heavens, but the waters rustled and 
lapsed below in deep shadow with faint sob- 
bings lost in the almost palpable darkness. 
On the opposite corner of the campo was a 
palace, now obscure in the night. Gerard 
had not previously noticed the building, and 
now it inspired in him an indefinable sense of 
dread. 

As he gazed at the mansion, a ray of light 
traversed the upper story, vague, tremulous, 
and pale as a wandering moonbeam. Curi- 
osity and a chill current of repulsion swept 
over him, forcing him to watch the light. 
The faint gleam emanated from the central 
window of the third floor, where a shutter 
swung free, as if recently opened. 

A man stood in the middle space, within 


66 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

the balcony, tall and thin in figure ; and while 
he remained in shadow, Gerard saw his head 
and profile reflected on the curtain and wall 
beyond. 

It was one of those photographic and instan- 
taneous impressions of a lean, aquiline face, 
with prominent nose and chin, and long hair 
falling over the shoulders, which the eye of 
an artist seizes with unerring perception and 
almost unconsciously. 

Gerard bent over the window-ledge to 
glance down the canal on the left ; and when 
he again turned towards the house, both lamp 
and man had disappeared in the pervading 
stillness and gloom. 

The young pilgrim stretched forth his hand 
with a gesture of restored self-confidence and 
exultation. The Sea City was his own, from 
her loftiest tower and marble-incrusted palaces 
to her hoarded treasures of art. Her children 
were all his slaves, compelled to do his bidding, 
from the haughtiest noble of the past, as well 
as the little dwarf of to-day, to the Greek 
Dogaressa Theodora, fresh from her bath of 
dew and rosewater, and the dark-eyed daugh- 
ter of the fruit-vender, stringing beads in the 


THE SEA CITY. 


67 


doorway of a summer afternoon. He held 
them all in the grasp of his hand. 

When slumber touched his eyelids, he once 
more saw the woman standing in the golden 
glory of western sunlight of the church apse. 

u Hers were the eyes which, over and beneath, 

The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw, 
By sea, or sky, or woman, to one law, 

The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.’ ’ 

Then a voice mingled with his dreams, — 

“ She is the empress of the East, but she is 
also Venice.” 


68 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


CHAPTER III. 

A YOUNG PILGRIM. 

The following day was the , festival of All 
Saints. The first interest of the little dwarf 
Pippo was to look up the stranger who had 
come to lodge at the Inn of the Half-Moon. 

Gerard was gone ; had eluded this vigilant 
imp, whose busy brain was already plotting 
means w^hereby to utilize his advent in the 
quarter. It was quite true that Gerard had 
vanished without drinking a matutinal cup of 
coffee. 

The landlord, instigated by professional 
prudence, and the persistent inquiries of the 
dwarf, entered his chamber, and glanced about 
to discern traces of possible flight, with an 
unpaid bill pending. The portfolio lay open 
on a chair, while a pencil had fallen on the 
floor. 

The padrone shrugged his broad shoulders. 

“ He will return,” he said easily. 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


69 


The dwarf crept away again, grumbling 
under his breath. 

Gerard did not come back on that day or 
the next. In the darkness of the third even- 
ing, a gondola again grated against the steps, 
and the young man sprang lightly out. 

The old hooker and the dwarf awaited him. 

44 The signore has been long absent,” said 
Pippo in a tone betraying anxiety and resent- 
ment. 

44 Yes,” retorted Gerard, tossing him a soldo. 

Then he went in to the osteria , made suit- 
able explanation to his host, and entered his 
chamber, where he contemplated dreamily the 
familiar objects scattered about as he had left 
them. 

Aroused from uneasy slumbers by the sounds 
of morning, the clinking of metal buckets at 
a neighboring well, and the cries of venders, 
the young pilgrim had risen, after the eve of 
All Souls, and gone forth to contemplate the 
dawn. His feet led him instinctively to the 
Riva degli Schiavone, where the multitude of 
sails had first charmed his eye by their variety 
and color. Impulse led him to board a Chiog- 
gian fishing-boat about to weigh anchor, and 


70 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

voyage to the little town thirty miles distant 
on the southern lagoon. He had lingered, for- 
getful of time, prepared to mingle with the 
fisher-folk, and lead an existence free, wild, 
full of a picturesque variety, in studying the 
old houses with their red roofs and embra- 
sured casements, and their inhabitants. The 
return of the boat Venice-wards once more 
reminded him of circumstance. 

The artist, sheltered again in the inn, slept 
until noon the next day ; and then the house 
awakened him. 

As distinctly as an inanimate object can 
confront and arouse a human being, by its 
mute significance, the house cast a spell on the 
dormant faculties of Gerard Grootz, quicken- 
ing sensibility to acute wakefulness. He had 
turned his head on the pillow towards the un- 
shuttered windows; and, as he opened his 
eyes, the palace opposite seemed to be look- 
ing in on him. Gerard’s heart throbbed with 
a pulsation of alarm, surprise, and dread. A 
conviction smote him that he was waited for 
and watched. 

Houses have a distinctive physiognomy, as 
well as their inmates, gained in the lapse of 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


71 


time ; and the aspect of this one was melan- 
choly in desertion, sinister, even baffling. 
Robbed of the blotting shadow of midnight, 
when the feeble ray of light from^the lamp 
of the upper story had failed to pierce the 
pervading obscurity, Gerard now discerned in 
the full noonday every detail, stain, and adorn- 
ment of the structure. 

In a first estate the palazzo had belonged 
to the Gothic type of the fourteenth century, 
combining lightness and grace with that ap- 
pearance of solidity which is imparted by the 
heavy mouldings of arched portal, and the cen- 
tral casement, divided by twisted pillarettes, 
and opening on a balcony, — three stories in 
height : the ground floor, once serving as ar- 
mory, bakery, and for offices, had small, irregu- 
lar windows heavily barred, a door leading 
to a court on the side of the campo , and a 
water-gate on the canal with wooden valves, 
a wicket to inspect visitors, and a ponderous 
knocker in the form of a fish ; the piano nobile 
above, with the balcony ; and the third series 
with a similar window and balcony : the whole 
surmounted by projecting eaves and cornices 
and ornamented parapet, with balls and spires 


72 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

bearing traces of gilding. This parapet veri- 
fied the boast, that while other mediaeval towns 
fortified turrets and towers, Venice adorned 
her roofs with a golden crown in the sem- 
blance of flower and fruit. 

The artist noticed that the dilapidated green 
shutters of the upper story were now closed, 
and the hinges rusty. 

For the rest, the mansion was the open 
page of a volume rich in the charm of sug- 
gestion of crumbling ornament, stucco, and 
fresco faded to russet tints ; of mellow-toned 
brick, with marble shaft and archivolt about 
the embrasures, and sculptured corbels sup- 
porting the balconies ; of hints and gleams of 
color which had once glorified the exterior 
in a freshness of magnificence. Beneath the 
lower balcony, a shield bore the coat-of-arms 
of the noble family to whom the palace had 
originally belonged, delicately wrought. 

The delight of Gerard in dwelling on these 
details was that of all artists under similar 
circumstances. 

At Florence, the severe Palazzo of the Sig- 
noria was built for the greater security of the 
rulers, as Macchiavelli affirmed: at Venice 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


73 


the Doge’s Palace, on the contrary, with all its 
arabesques,, columns, galleries, and arches, re- 
sembles a poet’s dream. 

The opposite bouse had clearly fallen from 
a first glory into neglect, decay, and perhaps 
utter desertion ; yet it presented a certain dig- 
nity of stanch front and solid wall to a spying 
and curious public. Attracted, and at the 
same time repelled, by the habitation which 
had intruded on his very slumbers, Gerard 
rose, and made his simple toilet. He had 
scarcely finished dressing, when a confused 
murmur of voices, the sounds of chanting, 
and strains of music, drew him to the window. 

The quarter celebrated on that day the 
sagra of its especial saint, irrespective of other 
portions of the city, and all the world. The 
procession had commenced to make a tour of 
the quarter for the purpose of incensing each 
shrine, and was visible approaching in a waver- 
ing line of color around the crooked calli and 
campi , like a flame creeping about the base of 
the old houses. 

The porters came first, divided into three 
bands, wearing ephods of red, white, or blue 
over their working-clothes, and bearing aloft 


74 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

banners, heavy crosses, and candelabra. Then 
followed the sacristan, clad in scarlet, ringing 
his bell, and preceding the musicians, and 
three little acolytes swaying silver censers. 
In the midst walked the old priest, in gor- 
geous vestments and laces, protected by an 
embroidered canopy, and holding the Host. 
A crowd of men and women joined in the 
chant, the former bareheaded, and the latter 
wearing veils. The banners and crosses spar- 
kled in the sunshine ; the incense curled up- 
ward in fragrant wreaths on the still air ; the 
voices rose and fell, mingling with flute, trom- 
bone, and clarinet. 

Gerard recognized the dwarf Pippo in the 
crowd ; and the latter, catching his eye, re- 
moved his hat with a salutation of elaborate 
politeness. 

At the same moment the door of the Gothic 
palace gave egress to a man of mature age. 
This man, of a vulpine cast of features, sallow 
in complexion, and with hair and whiskers 
already tinged with gray, crossed the campo , 
his brow contracted, like a person absorbed in 
thought, his eyes fixed on the ground, and 
entered a dark shop situated on the opposite 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


75 


corner of the canal. He did not notice the 
pageant. 

The artist then became aware that the cen- 
tral window of the sombre mansion had been 
thrown open, as if in obedience to the common 
impulse of the neighborhood. His attention 
was speedily riveted on the occupants of the 
balcony, with a sentiment of surprise and 
pleasure. 

A young girl as fresh, beautiful, and smiling 
as the morning, leaned forward to greet friends 
in the throng below, with gestures both grace- 
ful and full of a childish gayety. 

Beside her stood the woman who had daz- 
zled the waking and sleeping thought of the 
young pilgrim on the day of his arrival at 
Venice. Her attitude now, as then, betrayed 
a languid indifference to the brilliant spectacle, 
or some mental pre-occupation. 

Gerard asked himself if she could actually 
be there, across the narrow span of ccimpo , 
instead of fading, merging into one of those 
processions of saints in the golden background 
of a church mosaic, after the western light 
had passed away, and the shadows had begun 
to lengthen down nave and chancel. He had 


76 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

not expected to again see her. She had 
supplied the chord in the symphony otherwise 
incomplete and imperfect. 

The morning touched caressingly the blonde 
head, and full white throat, and rounded chin 
of the young girl, while dealing more harshly 
with her companion. Haggard, with great 
lustrous eyes veiled by heavy lashes, and a 
wave of black hair sweeping low over the 
brow, and a sullen droop about the fine, 
sharply defined features, she looked old be- 
yond her years ; a penitent worn by fruitless 
vigils ; a lamp in which the spirit flame is 
burned out. 

A third figure stood behind the pair, — a 
stout woman, nurse or attendant, vivacious, 
warmly colored, wrinkled, and with gray hair, 
whose movements evinced brusque good-humor 
and familiarity. 

The eye of Gerard Grootz softened as it 
rested on the young girl, in her frock of crim- 
son stuff with a knot of red ribbons coquet- 
tishly adjusted as if to attract the admiration 
of the crowd ; but his cheek paled with some 
subtle and inexplicable emotion in contem- 
plating her companion, clad in a loose robe of 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


77 


purple hues, with a handkerchief of amber silk 
carelessly knotted about the throat. 

The procession advanced in a desultory 
fashion, the banners waving, the tapers flick- 
ering, and the voices chanting. Clusters of 
faces appeared at the windows of the houses, 
while strips of carpet and flags suspended from 
the ledge enhanced the gayety of the scene. 
The adjacent bridge was decked with garlands, 
and draped with mats of vivid hues ; and as 
the priest gained the summit of the arch he 
paused, and elevated the host. The music 
and the chanting ceased, and the crowd knelt. 

Gerard turned involuntarily towards the 
balcony. The young girl and the servant had 
fallen on their knees. The other woman with- 
drew a pace in the chamber, and remained 
stubbornly erect. Contempt, regret, fierce im- 
patience, even despair, were the emotions 
plainly discernible on her mobile features as 
her glance encountered that of the stranger 
opposite. 

A dull sense of oppression weighed on his 
breast ; an exclamation, which was half a cry, 
escaped his lips under the spell of her look. 
Oh fol* the power to transfuse that living 


78 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


image on canvas ! Oh, to behold that face, so 
strange and vivid in the power of life, grow in 
human semblance beneath his brush ! Who 
was she ? What was she ? A creature who 
refused to bend in obedience to a common law 
of religion. 

The parish celebrated the festival of the 
saint with song, laughter, and the true enjoy- 
ment of devotion. Instinct with that local 
patriotism which rendered Dante’s quarter of 
Florence a narrow sphere complete in itself, 
this nook of Venice had its own customs, 
saint, witch, doctor, historical association, and 
even peculiarities of accent, such as rendered 
it superior to all other quarters of the Sea 
City, not excluding San Marco and the Grand 
Canal. Was not the saint the daughter of a 
Doge, whose early development of an edifying 
piety had led her to dream dreams and see 
visions in childhood, until she built a church 
in fulfilment of a vow, after a visitation of the 
plague of unusual severity ? 

The giro completed, of wafting incense be- 
fore each street shrine, the procession ebbed 
back to the sanctuary once more, whither 
Gerard followed. 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


79 


He speedily found himself in the church, 
which was small, built of red and white mar- 
ble, and surmounted by a Byzantine cross. 
The medallion of a Greek emperor was in- 
serted in the vestibule. A rose window shed 
a jewelled light down upon the pavement of 
the aisles. He paused near an altar decorated 
with pyramids and clusters of tapers set amidst 
wreaths of artificial roses and gauzy draperies. 
Above the altar was a picture of St. George, 
a graceful youth with fair hair floating over 
his shoulders, as he spurred forward his spir- 
ited charger, and levelled his spear at the 
dragon already writhing beneath the hoofs of 
the horse. The rescued princess stood in the 
background with clasped hands. 

There was a slight movement in the crowd, 
and the young girl of the balcony pressed 
eagerly forward, closely followed by the mid- 
dle-aged attendant. 

The girl’s face was raised to the altar and 
the galaxy of lights in an ecstasy of delight 
or of devotional rapture. 

“ See, Gesualda mia ! How fine the San 
Giorgio is to-day, with all these flowers,” 
whispered the girl. 


80 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ I see, my child,” replied Gesualda, mak- 
ing a rapid genuflection before a shrine. 

“Oh, look at the altar of Our Lady of 
Mercy ! It shines like gold and precious jew- 
els,” continued the girl, brushing Gerard’s 
shoulder with her sleeve in her excitement. 

The glance of the young man sought in vain 
the third member of this family group. 

A sudden current of air swept one of the 
tinsel draperies over a candle, and a fragment 
dropped blazing to the marble steps. The 
servant uttered a shriek of terror, for the 
wreath had fallen upon her young mistress. 

To snatch the spray from its hold on her 
garments, and crush the mass beneath his foot, 
was Gerard’s swift movement. 

The girl flushed with alarm, grew pale, and 
sobbed. She turned upon the young man a 
look of eloquent gratitude, and allowed her 
nurse to lead her away, who grumbled and 
scolded now that all danger was over. 

The accident, which might have so readily 
become a tragedy, passed without interrupting 
the mass, or being known by those praying in 
remote portions of the sacred edifice. 

Emerging once more from the church, the 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


81 


artist was accosted by tlie dwarf : “ The gen- 
tleman likes our contrcida ? ” 

Oh, yes ! Gerard found much to admire in 
the quarter. 

44 The signore had better select quarters 
here, then,” Pippo insinuated, cocking his 
head on one side. 44 Many foreign artists 
have dwelt with us, and preferred the locality 
to any other. The homes of the great Titian 
and Tintoretto are not far distant. Would 
the signore wish to be shown the dwellings of 
those illustrious men l ” 

Gerard shook his head, and returned to the 
inn. The words of the dwarf lingered in his 
mind, however. He must choose a studio. 
Where ? His gaze swept the campo , the 
angle of bridge and canal, and rested on the 
opposite palace. To be near that house, 
with the inmates, was a first instinct. He 
smiled half-shy ly ; and, taking up his sketch- 
book, began to make a design of the bal- 
cony. 

In the city of the balcony, rendered poeti- 
cal by centuries of association, the artist 
drew curve and railing and volute as a frame 
to hold some fair woman. 


82 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ I may go to another part of the town ; 
and the light is good to-day,” he reasoned, as 
if self-extenuation were necessary. 

The dwarf Pippo remained outside, plying 
his trade in honor of the saint. He carried 
a little cage, which held four parrakeets. 
These birds, gift of a sailor, not only had 
glossy green plumage and crests of feathers, 
but were trained to draw a number from a 
box, which corresponded with a leaflet from 
a book of fortune, on the payment of a soldo. 
The parrakeets were the constant companions 
of their odd master, the confidants of his 
secrets, the pets of his childish moods, the 
objects of his care, day and night. He had 
christened them gravely Giovanni, Matteo, 
Maria, and Lucia. Giovanni was the most 
reliable bird of the tiny comrades, and never 
failed to display suitable zeal in business, 
while the rest were inconsequent on occasion. 
The public smiled and frowned on these sooth- 
sayers, now buying fortune-cafds as the day 
of the lottery- drawing approached, and again 
waxing sceptical with failure. 

Pippo suddenly traversed the bridge, and 
sought the shop entered by the middle-aged 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


83 


man at an earlier hour, at the corner of the 
canal. 

The place consisted of a series of cham- 
bers, separated by arches, and containing the 
pictures, bronzes, and inlaid furniture of a 
bric-a-brac dealer. 

Daniele Falcioni was a merchant, banker, 
collector, and usurer in one. 

The dwarf, hugging his bird-cage under one 
arm, demanded to see the padrone , of an as- 
sistant who was mending the brass-work of a 
cabinet. Shown into the presence of Daniele 
Falcioni, the little man was in no wise abashed 
by the irritable expression of the collector. 
He took from his pocket a morsel of paper 
twisted, unfolded, and drew forth a coin. 

“I found this piece between the stones of 
the cortile yonder,” he said, observing the 
dealer slyly as he spoke. 

Falcioni took the coin between his finger 
and thumb, scrutinizing the date, and then 
returned it. A 

“ You might have spared yourself the trou- 
ble either of finding or bringing me such 
rubbish,” he said in a dry tone. 

“ Then the signore will not buy it of a poor 


84 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

orphan, even on our festa” said Pippo, with a 
wheedling persuasiveness of look and gesture. 

“ No,” retorted the antiquarian. 

“ Try a lucky number with the birds,” per- 
sisted the dwarf. 

“It is better to earn fortune,” was the con- 
temptuous rejoinder ; and, turning to the let- 
ters on the desk, as if resenting the intrusion, 
Falcioni dismissed him. 

The assistant admonished Pippo to depart, 
by a rapid pantomime. 

“ It seems that the padrone has an attack 
of the nerves to-day,” he explained in a dis- 
creet undertone. 

“ May the fiends take all Jews to purga- 
tory ! ” murmured Pippo, when safely outside 
of the door. 

Then he seated himself on his favorite flight 
of steps, and meditated for a long time. 

Child of the quarter, where he shared the 
crust of the grandfather, he clung tenaciously 
to the very stones of his native city, dreaming 
of no other existence than that rounded by ■ 
the fiery summers of her quays, and the freez- 
ing winters of her lagoons, with the cycle of 
festivals. Profoundly distrustful of the sea, 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


85 


and all sea-craft, even to the familiar gondola, 
he haunted the canal brink, receiving the 
gifts of the treacherous elements, as his due, 
when brought to his very feet. He held his 
own with the populace by reason of the readi- 
ness and pungency of his wit, and an adroit- 
ness of movement in one long accustomed to 
threading the labyrinth of secluded by-ways 
and open piazza. He loved the pantomime, 
the puppet-booth, to haunt the footsteps of 
astrologer and fortune-teller, or hung en- 
tranced on the words of any improvisator and 
recitationist. 

At length he threw back his head, and burst 
into cackling laughter. The result of his 
meditation evidently afforded him pleasure. 
Mingling once more with the crowd, his black 
eyes sparkled with malice ; and his tongue 
found ready utterance in bandying gibe and 
jeer with his neighbors. 

Day waned, and the festa waxed merrier 
with the advance of evening. The campo 
was illuminated ; and oil-lamps twinkled in 
the casements where pictures of the saint, 
clad in a white robe, and with flowing hair, 
were suspended. The corner shrines were 


86 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

transfigured by a galaxy of stars. The old 
palace was decorated with a row of tinted 
globes across the first balcony. 

Cries resounded, extolling the excellence 
of the chestnuts roasting, the puff pastry, 
the cuttle-fish redolent of oil. The stalls of 
the venders were resplendent with light, in 
which the great brass dishes sparkled like 
suns. 

From time to time, a Bengal fire shed a 
ghostly gleam across the animated scene, re- 
vealing the faces of the blonde and the bru- 
nette on the balcony with sudden splendor, 
then dying away through gradations of quiver- 
ing rose and blue tints to comparative obscu- 
rity once more. 

The dwarf Pippo mingled with the throng 
of dancers, now commencing to circulate in 
response to the inspiriting strains of the 
music, and where La Furlana, cousin-german 
of the Tarantella, was traceable in the grace- 
ful evolutions of many a maiden. He chaffed 
the venders, and sniffed the blended odors ris- 
ing from brasier and copper casserolle , munch- 
ing the chestnuts the while. He sang odd 
refrains, snapped his fingers in the air, and 


A YOUNG PILGRIM. 


87 


stamped on the ground, executing a grotesque 
sort of pas seul. 

“ Thou hast drunk too much of the new 
wine,” warned the grandfather, seated in the 
archway, and musing on past carnivals and 
pageants, when he also sang, danced, and jested 
as a young and active gondoliere. 

But Pippo was not tipsy ; and his intoxica- 
tion had a deeper source than the noise, lights, 
and movement of the annual sagra , in which 
he always delighted. 

He took the coin from his pocket, and spun 
it deftly on the marble step. 

“ May the Devil fly away with all usurers 
and niggards ! ” he exclaimed aloud. 


88 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. • 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

The palace which had attracted the notice 
of the young foreign artist Gerard Grootz, not 
more for the richness of exterior than the 
living inmates, was known in the quarter as 
the house of the musician. 

Leonardo Bardi, one of the most gifted vio- 
linists of the century, had dwelt and died 
here, leaving a fame untarnished in this nook 
of his native city, if reputed a spendthrift, a 
gambler, and a madman elsewhere. Nay, did 
not his eccentricities, his visionary abstrac- 
tions, his outbursts of unreasonable passion 
and excitement, the transports amounting to 
delirium in moments of composition or exe- 
cution, combined with a reckless generosity 
towards the poor, shed an additional lustre on 
his name? 

The old men and women, seated in the 
doorway, or warming shrivelled limbs in the 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 89 

sun of the campo , measured Leonardo Bardi 
by their own standard, and perhaps estimated 
him at his true value. 

He was born over yonder, in an arrow calle , 
of a vigorous 'and noisy brood ; and the musi- 
cians had early taken him up for his clever 
knack of playing the violin and singing. He 
had carried the head on the shoulder all his 
life, the old people opined, but he had a good 
heart. 

Of the years devoted to study under exact- 
ing masters, these critics knew nothing. Of 
the triumphs of the violinist, as the fruit of 
unrelaxed toil, when the audiences of London, 
Paris, Berlin, or St. Petersburg hung entranced 
on the lightest vibration of the cords beneath 
his lean and supple fingers, and the spell of 
the weird harmonies wrought into subtile ca- 
dences by the bow he wielded moved humanity 
to pain, sadness, and tears more often than 
merriment, the old people knew still less, 
save in the gifts of jewels and wealth accruing 
to this favorite of fortune. 

The events of his career were briefly 
summed up in the quarter, while imagination 
had free scope to embellish the history. 


90 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


As a little boy his father had beaten him 
when wholesome correction was necessary ; for 
how was Giuseppe Bardi, the sailmaker, to v 
know that Leonardo differed from the rest of 
the brood, Sandro, Maffeo, or Cesare ] 

As a man of middle age, the musician had 
returned to Venice to be received with ovations 
for his unprecedented popularity elsewhere, 
and marry the beautiful Bianca Samazzi, 
daughter of that designing woman, the lace- 
merchant, sometime of Burano. A creature 
full of wiles and cunning the Samazzi, who 
mended the frayed meshes of lustrous webs 
with unequalled skill, and wove other meshes 
to entangle the souls of men the while. When 
she was married, Bianca Samazzi wore neither 
the traditional white robe and flowing tresses of 
Titian’s Flora, nor the discreet black dress and 
veil of her years ; for the enamoured violinist 
literally enveloped her graceful form in the 
most costly lace to be procured from the hoard 
of noble ladies by her mother, and twined 
about her neck and in her blonde hair strings 
of pearls and other gems. 

How radiant she was thus attired ! and so 
lithesome in her loveliness, that slander hinted 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 91 


she had served as a model to a great sculptor 
before Leonardo Bardi saw and loved her. 

Nothing less than the Gothic palazzo, hence- 
forth to be known as the house of the musician, 
would suit the ambition of the women, mother 
and daughter. The violinist purchased and 
furnished the mansion sumptuously, and here 
his two daughters were born. 

The palace had acquired an evil repute. 
Several tragedies had occurred within the 
walls, not the least of which was the violent 
death of the bride of the last noble of the race, 
who threw herself from the window of the 
second door into the court, and fell into the 
well. The rash act was to escape the poniard 
of her jealous lord, it was rumored; and the 
sculptured lid of the well had since remained 
closed. 

What cared the women Samazzi for these 
ugly tales ? The wife basked in the luxury of 
her new sphere, insolently, capriciously, indo- 
lently. She possessed the true Venetian in- 
stinct of lavish extravagance, which led the 
wives of bakers to attire themselves in gold 
brocade at an earlier date of the Republic. 
The Signora Bardi, secure in the possession 


92 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

of bewitching charms, was prepared to spend 
seven hours at her toilet, like her prototype 
of the Middle Ages ; to perfume her bath with 
musk, aloes, myrrh, and amber ; to study new 
modes' of fashion ; to attach a black patch to 
cheek or chin, fraught with significance for 
the cavaliers perpetually hovering about her ; 
and wield her fan of ivory, tortoise-shell, or 
gold, gem-studded, in the same graceful war- 
fare of encouragement and rebuke. The soft- 
est tissues, the most harmonious hues, became 
necessary to the woman who had strung beads 
in early girlhood, and esteemed herself fortu- 
nate to have a new gown for a festa. Lace 
and silk shrouded her bed in a gilded alcove, 
supported by two caryatides. Statues, pic- 
tures, and rich Eastern plants adorned the 
apartments ; portieres of satin and damask were 
suspended over doors of carved woods ; while 
tables and brackets held vases, vessels of chased 
silver, enamelled dishes and boxes, or irides- 
cent bubbles of Murano crystal. 

A caprice of the beautiful woman was to 
transform the interior of her abode into a true 
paradise at night, by means of light shed from 
candelabra suspended from the ceiling or at- 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


93 


tached to the walls, and Oriental lamps of 
gilded copper and bronze, engraved, and sway- 
ing from wrought chain and column, or lan- 
terns gleaming with the variegated tints of 
painted glass. 

Did she ever weary of her own image thus 
reflected in the mirrors garlanded with flowers, 
passing from shadow to full effulgence of wax 
candles, with fair arms and neck relieved by 
sombre draperies, and blonde tresses caught 
in the meshes of a golden net ? 

What feasting went on from night until 
morning ! The old people knew, and could 
revel in a Barmecide feast of reminiscence 
even now, smacking withered lips at the bare 
mention of the delicacies enjoyed over yonder, 
whether served in the garden, a nook dedicated 
to love and the Graces, or in the large sola 
within doors. 

A whet of sausage, truffles, and salad, was 
not likely to be forgotten before a meal when 
Oriental wines, the vintages of Hungary and 
Austria, as well as the frothing champagne, 
flowed so abundantly. Lampreys of Binasco, 
Friulli hams, sturgeon of Ferrara, Lombardy 
quail, Roman geese, thrushes of Perugia, 


94 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


served with laurel and pepper, pastry of Genoa, 
all found their way to this hospitable table, 
with such imported luxuries as the palate 
of Leonardo Bardi might crave after years of 
travel. The majolica, glass, and silver dishes 
were filled with luscious fruit, — cherry, al- 
mond, muscatelle pear, apricots, grapes, prunes, 
and peaches, with great melons. 

The musician, fantastic in moments of gayety, 
and yielding more and more to fits of gloomy 
abstraction, broke away from the spell which 
had held him in thrall for some years, and 
quitted Venice on a protracted professional 
tour. Possibly escape from the sweet slavery 
of mere human love, and a return to the true 
mistress of his life, music, awakened the rap- 
ture, the elation, the dreamy reveries, of his 
subsequent playing. The public of the great 
capitals welcomed him back with unwonted 
enthusiasm. At Vienna a party of students 
drew his carriage through the crowded streets, 
from theatre to hotel, in lieu of horses. At 
Nice a royal invalid sent him a diamond soli- 
taire after a concert. The soul of the violinist 
spoke to his hearers in those days, through the 
medium of his exquisite execution, just as the 




THE HOUSE OF THE AW SIC I AN. 95 

Stradivarius, tempered in sunshine, and fash- 
ioned in curves by the master’s hand, full of 
a delicate meaning, in the Cremona workshop, 
is the soul of all harmonies in the subtile and 
thrilling pulses of the realm of sound. 

Stormy, fitful, and then passionately appeal- 
ing in an entrancing sweetness of pathos and 
expression, Leonardo Bardi, tall, gaunt, with 
haggard features and dishevelled hair, stood 
before the audience with vailed eyes, indiffer- 
ent to the tumult of emotion he awakened in 
every breast. 

In the Venetian palace, a tragic event stirred 
the surface calm of prosperity, as if arousing 
the slumbering elements of evil ever brooding 
over court and chamber. The wife was dressed 
for the opera, in diaphanous draperies, with a 
veil of tulle, studded with silver stars, gathered 
up over her head. She turned to admire this 
toilet in a long mirror ; and the veil caught 
in a candle-flame, thus becoming a terrible 
winding-sheet. Her mother uttered piercing 
cries, and strove to extinguish the fire. In 
vain were her feeble efforts. 

Both died on the following day. 

Leonardo Bardi returned home to his terri- 


96 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

fied family, and remained crushed by grief. 
His bereavement was profound and irrepara- 
ble. He had forgotten the bride of a summer 
day, in absence and the absorption of his art. 
He now wept and raved over her tomb, in 
unavailing remorse and self-reproach. 

From that date his behavior became more 
eccentric, and his periods of absence more pro- 
longed. He passed his time chiefly at Paris 
and Vienna, where he became addicted to 
play. 

The daughters grew to maidenhood in the 
old palazzo , under the care of a foster-mother. 
Gesualda was a native of the island of Burano, 
and nurse of the eldest girl Marina Bardi. A 
guardian brusque, narrow in her jealous vigi- 
lance, she was easily moved to indulgence by 
the artful cajoleries of her charge. Leonardo 
Bardi, as a father, now overwhelmed his chil- 
dren with affection, showering gifts upon them, 
or again neglected altogether their education. 

On the tenth birthday of Marina, he brought 
toys from Parisian bazaars, which delighted 
the little girls, and announced a firm intention 
of never again quitting them or his native 
city. 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 


97 


The artless prattle of the children soon 
wearied him ; and as a compromise with his 
fixed resolution to remain in Venice, he with- 
drew to the third story, where he superin- 
tended repairs and alterations, and gathered 
together the musical instruments, books, pic- 
tures, and gifts bestowed upon him as a 
virtuoso. 

For a period of three years Leonardo Bardi 
imparted a unique individuality to the house 
and the quarter by the singularity of his pres- 
ence, and the charm of his gift. Strains of 
music stole forth from the open casements 
of an evening, and drew a throng of listeners 
to the campo ; or some capricious melody issu- 
ing from a gondola as it glided along the verge 
of gray lagoon, in the twilight, attracted other 
craft in the wake, as if in obedience to some 
magic spell. 

Haunted by a feverish restlessness, the 
musician came and went at all hours, his gray 
hair floating over his shoulders in disorder, his 
raiment neglected, his features contracted, as 
if he were prey to some mental or moral strife. 
Quiet folk glanced significantly, as the end of 
it all, to a sinister building on a distant island. 


98 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


But Leonardo Bardi was not destined to termi- 
nate his existence in a madhouse. His spirit 
yearned to return to the world. Or did the 
passion for gaming again assert irresistible 
sway over his nature ] 

The neighbors knew every detail of that 
departure. The father assured Gesualda that 
he had made due provision of bridal dowry for 
his two daughters, should any misfortune over- 
take him. Marina and Bianca were to perfect 
themselves in embroidery, and any accomplish- 
ments they might prefer, during his absence. 

The seasons passed after that, and the voice 
of Marina Bardi, full, passionate, and rich, 
echoed through the silent house, instead of the 
weird note of her father’s violin. This voice 
reached the ear of the soldier on the quay. 
From glance to smile and covert speech, from 
spark to fire of love : the old rhythm, forever 
new, lent the poetry of sweet meaning to the 
springtime, with the beautiful girl leaning over 
the balcony, and the young officer haunting 
the canal, the bridge, the piazza, if she moved 
abroad. 

Then Leonardo Bardi came home, summoned 
by the faithful and tyrannical Gesualda. 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


99 


Broken, shrivelled, spent, the musician ap- 
peared like the ghost of his former self, the 
ashes of an extinct volcano. Life had con- 
sumed him. He received his prospective son- 
in-law the captain with affability and golden 
promises. 

The suitor, of a noble but impoverished 
Sicilian family, charmed the women by his 
grace of bearing and ardent devotion. 

The lovers, under paternal sanction, were 
permitted to freely communicate their senti- 
ments, and gaze into each other’s eyes, either 
in the garden or the sola. Moments, hours, 
and days span the supreme happiness of many 
lives. The glow of triumph lent such radi- 
ance to the charms of Marina’s seventeen 
years as dazzled her suitor, and attracted even 
the abstracted gaze of her parent, on the 
memorable night of which the town still gos- 
sipped. Marina’s beauty, rich, strange, vivid, 
was that of a tropical flower. 

The party had supped gayly near the open 
casement and balcony, and animation awoke 
in Leonardo Bardi. His eye sparkled with 
a sombre fire, and his speech grew rapid. His 
scrutiny of the betrothed couple became fur- 


100 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

tive, speculative, even sinister. Dismissing 
the lover with a certain magniloquence of 
gesture and manner suggestive of the theatre, 
he paced the long sola with agitated step. 
Marina, wrapped in soft reveries of the future 
when she would go forth into the world, for 
the first time, on the arm of her husband, 
gazed at the stars and their reflection in the 
quivering ripples of the canal. The nurse 
and the young Bianca watched the long, fan- 
tastic shadow of the musician projected on the 
wall, as he moved. 

Suddenly he paused, and regarded Bianca 
moodily. 

“ At least thou art too much of a child to 
require a bridal dowry yet,” he said abruptly, 
and resumed his walk. 

“ What does he mean ? ” whispered the girl, 
with her arm around the neck of Gesualda. 

“ Who knows that he is prepared to portion 
more than one child ? ” retorted the nurse in a 
fierce undertone, knitting her brows, and set- 
ting her white teeth together. 

Gesualda held her own ground tenaciously 
in loyalty to her charges, who were also her 
kinsfolk on the side of the grandmother; but 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 101 


she resented with bitterness the indifference 
of Leonardo Bardi to all domestic relations. 
Some element of her displeasure infected the 
girl Bianca. Her father had not caressed and 
praised her since his return. Now he was 
prepared to thrust her still further aside as 
not requiring a bridal dowry. 

On such slight threads as the jealous petu- 
lance of a spoiled child hung the culminating 
tragedy of the house of the musician. 

Bianca kept a vigilant watch on the irreso- 
lute movements of her father. Her rosy lips 
pouted, and her brow clouded. She was sus- 
picious and angry. He should not forget her ! 
Three years the junior of Marina, the preco- 
cious Southern instincts of womanhood had 
awakened in the childish breast of Bianca in 
contemplating the happiness of the plighted 
lovers. She felt herself repulsed; but she 
stood on the fountains brink of youth, and sur- 
veyed, with curiosity, her own reflected image. 
Soon her day would come ! 

Leonardo Bardi again paused in his prome- 
nade, but it was not to accost his wondering 
family. He passed one of his long, thin 
hands over his brow, and murmured, — 


102 THE HOUSE OF . THE MUSICIAN. 


“ Yes ! Bianca is still too young to marry.” 

Then he moved towards the door. 

Bianca sprang after him. 

“ Where art thou going, padre mio ? ” she 
demanded sharply. 

A glow of wrath, sudden, bitter, and in- 
tense, suffused the hollow visage of the musi- 
cian. He turned upon his daughter, as if 
about to strike her ; his lips quivered, unable 
to frame the words he desired to utter, and he 
pointed, with a shaking hand, to the ceiling. 

He withdrew to the suite of rooms he had 
formerly fitted up for his own use on the third 
story. 

When he was gone, Bianca stamped her 
foot, shed a few tears, and burst into vehe- 
ment reproaches of the cruel neglect she suf- 
fered. The dreaming Marina was aroused 
from her reveries, and moved from the balcony. 
The soothing caresses of sister and nurse 
added fuel to the girl’s wrath. She broke 
away from the arms encircling her, and ran 
up the stairs in pursuit of her father. Marina 
and Gesualda grew pale, and looked at each 
other. To intrude on the musician at such a 
moment, might be dangerous. They followed, 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 103 


chilled by a mutual apprehension, yet deter- 
mined to protect their pet. 

Bianca tapped on the panel ; and then, ter- 
rified by her own temerity, drew back to the 
extreme limit of the landing. 

Leonardo Bardi opened the door, and con- 
fronted the group. 

“ I shall need my bridal dowry soon. Do 
not forget me, padre mio.” The young girl 
spoke boldly, even resentfully ; but she pressed 
her clasped hands to her heart as if to check 
the tumultuous pulsations of fear aroused by 
her own act. 

The musician looked above her head into 
space. One would have said that he was 
troubled by some ghostly vision. A mortal 
pallor overspread his features ; his limbs be- 
came rigid ; his eyes mechanically fixed, and 
devoid of light. The hair on his head ap- 
peared to bristle wfith dread. 

“ I will not forget, my child,” he replied at 
length in a gentle tone, and again withdrew, 
closing the door of his own apartment. 

That was the last ever seen of Leonardo 
Bardi in life. Next morning he was found 
extended on the floor of the sala , which 


104 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


formed the principal chamber of the private 
suite. He held a small pistol in one hand. 
Near him on the rug lay a long, keen knife, 
and a key. No trace of violence was percep- 
tible. No written word of farewell to liis 
children was discoverable. The muffled re- 
port of a weapon had been audible in the 
dawn. More than one denizen of the quar- 
ter recalled the circumstance, when the news 
spread abroad. The household had slept, — 
Gesualda heavily, Marina lulled to roseate 
dreams, and Bianca with the childish abandon 
of weariness after tears and chagrin. 

The worldly affairs of the virtuoso were 
found to be hopelessly involved, owing to the 
extravagant caprices of his career, and he left 
no testament of any kind. The passion for 
play which had drawn him back to club and 
casino, after the death of his wife, had plunged 
him into a vortex of feverish excitement, from 
which he had seldom attempted to extricate 
himself. The fitful impulse of self-reproach 
and remorse had doubtless brought him home 
to arrange the happy marriage of his eldest 
daughter with the lover of her own selection. 

The family was left in possession of the 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 105 


Venetian palace, with the furniture and rich 
appointments, and absolutely nothing besides. 
In vain Gesualda searched box and cabinet 
for concealed hoard, or valuable paper, then 
relapsed into the piercing lamentations of 
mourning. A few gold coins scattered amidst 
the linen of a portmanteau, a valuable chro- 
nometer, and some trinkets comprised the in- 
heritance of the musician’s daughters, of the 
fortune which he had earned so easily by his 
incomparable improvisations, and valued so 
lightly. 

Slain by his own hand? Why? Marina 
and Gesualda looked at each other over the 
blonde head of Bianca. Did the full knowl- 
edge that he had no wedding portion to give 
either child push him to take the desperate 
step of self-destruction, after the young girl 
followed him up-stairs with the warning that 
soon she must demand her dowry, in turn, of 
so unfaithful a steward as her own father ? 

Poignant grief over the rash act, and the 
loss of a parent, mingled with a terrified con- 
sciousness of their own helplessness and desti- 
tution, smote each of the trio. 

Gesualda had not ventured to touch the 


106 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


pistol, fraught with such ghastly associations, 
or the knife ; but she took the key, and 
speedily fitted it into a chest. Her eager 
curiosity was only doomed to fresh disappoint- 
ment, for the contents of the chest proved to 
be some books and loose sheets of music. 
Why did Leonardo Bardi hold the key in his 
last moments \ 

The nurse, passionately loyal to her foster- 
children, and all in weeping convulsively as 
the bier, covered with a velvet pall, was 
borne away in silence, made a combination 
for the lottery out of the age of the musician, 
the day of the month, and the hour when he 
was found. The ter no lost, yet she kept the 
numbers in her head, and took the dwarf 
Pippo into her confidence, not only for the 
little service of purchasing the ticket, but to 
mark the figures on the wall of the stairway 
with a bit of charcoal. 

Marina, pale and subdued in bereavement, 
was upheld by her new-found hope. The joy 
of loving and being loved in the blossom- 
ing of a warm, luxuriant nature, was too fresh 
and strong within her breast, to be dashed 
aside, even by the shock of death. She ex- 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 107 


perienced for the handsome stranger that 
sudden, overwhelming passion, ardent, gener- 
ous, and uncalculating, which wrapped her 
about in a separate atmosphere. She 
smoothed the hair of her young sister as 
Bianca buried her head in the cushions of a 
sofa, a prey to tempestuous grief, with con- 
solatory words, while watching for one who 
did not come. 

The officer never returned ; had, in fact, 
availed himself of an exchange of duty, and 
quitted Venice, actuated by some prudent 
calculation, as Goldoni evaded matrimonial 
entanglements in his day. Alas ! there were 
eyes as dark as those of Marina Bardi in 
every garrison town, and balconies awaiting 
wooers in the springtime. 

Such was the third misfortune which had 
befallen the Bardi family in the Gothic palazzo. 

The neighbors began to shake their heads, 
and hint that the house of the musician was 
an abode of ill omen. Gesualda counted her 
beads in a corner, with her teeth chattering, 
as if from deadly cold. 

The intense agony of suspense in long 
waiting, the fierce and proud conflict with 


108 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

doubt and despair, quenclied the bloom of 
Marina’s cheek, so softly rounded. Her 
father’s singular restlessness became apparent 
in her whole being ; for hers was the organi- 
zation, — 

“ Bounteously made, 

And yet so finely, that a troublous touch 
Thinned, or would seem to thin her, in a day ; 

A joyous to dilate, as towards the light.’ ’ 

Blind obedience to the dictate's of her reli- 
gion was the first impulse of an overburdened 
heart. There was not a church, altar, or 
shrine in Venice where the black-robed figure 
of Leonardo Bardi’s daughter did not pray ; 
not so much for the repose of the dead as the 
return of the living. In the cold dawn, and 
the gathering twilight, she glided about aisle, 
cloister, and chancel ; now pouring out her 
soul and life in wild supplications for aid, and 
again lost in an ecstasy, a delirium of hope 
that the response to the appeals with which 
she had wearied Heaven and the ear of all 
pitying, intervening saints, was about to be 
fulfilled in the re-appearance of her lover. 
Her cheeks grew hollow, her eyes wan, her 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 109 


frame wasted, in the vigils which saved her 
from the frenzy of insanity. 

One night Gesualda confronted her on the 
stairway. Marina’s hair was wet with rain, 
and her breathing rapid. 

Gesualda knew that she had been consult- 
ing the wise woman of the parish, and carried 
some love philter concealed in her bosom. 
Old Maria Bracciaforte, a crone learned in 
medicine and witchcraft, came of a family of 
sorcerers, and dwelt over the fruit-shop. For 
her quarter, old Maria was the Circe of 
Homer, the Canidia of Horace, the Simmtha 
of Theocritus, and the Libyan sorcerer, in one ; 
and if she did not mutter spells to raise storms 
at sea, seek poisonous herbs at midnight, 
wherewith to slay enemies, make wax images 
thrust full of pins to waste the life of living 
victim, at least she kept alive her fame by 
dealing in raven’s wings, crystals, virgin parch- 
ments, and a dead man’s skull. Gesualda was 
not above consulting the witch herself, on 
occasion. 

“Why are you abroad so lateH’ demanded 
the nurse reproachfully. 

Marina laughed bitterly. 


110 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

44 Who would care to harm such as I ? ” she 
retorted. 

Gesualda averted her eyes, and continued 
in a sombre tone, — 

44 The dwarf Pippo brings a message.” 

44 From him ? Speak ! ” cried Marina hoarse- 
ly, and seizing the arm of her faithful com- 
panion. 

44 Ay ; the message was from him fast 
enough,” Gesualda exclaimed. 44 Devil ! 
Wretch! Reptile! May his children rise to 
curse him in his old age ! He went away 
when he heard the bad news. He cannot 
even write, but must needs send a message by 
another officer, some dandy of the piazza, 
through our little Pippo.” 

The blunt and pugnacious temperament of 
the nurse, daughter of sea-folk, thus found 
vent in anger and scorn of the faithless 
lover. 

Sharp measures may have been best. 
Marina shrank back with flaming eyes and 
quivering features. 

44 He has not even asked me to go away 
with him, when I would have followed him 
to the end of the world,” she panted, in ac- 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. Ill 


cents of despair. “ I would have been his 
slave, his servant.” 

From that hour she ceased to haunt the 
shrines of Madonna and saint, and refused to 
bow her head even at the elevation of the 
Host. Re-action from fervent appeal, and the 
desertion of her lover, rendered her sullen and 
an unbeliever. 

How often the creed is made responsible, in 
childish wrath, for the failure of some miracle- 
working Madonna to cure illness and misfor- 
tune ! 

Marina Bardi destroyed her temple, and 
tore down her gods, leaving a black void of 
despondency and gloom. 

Then Daniele Falcioni, collector, banker, 
usurer, a man whose brain teemed with pro- 
jects at once practical and visionary, entered 
the house of the musician, scanned the prem- 
ises with keen black eyes, beneath bushy 
gray brows, and made a proposal to purchase 
the property for a reasonable sum. 

“ No,” said Marina, frowning. “We were 
bom here, and we wish to die here.” 

44 Very good,” assented the usurer. 44 Should 
you wish for an accommodation, at any time, 


112 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

I will advance a loan on the most advantage- 
ous terms.” 

“ The Signore Falcioni may have the place 
when we are starved out,” added Marina, in 
a reckless yet disdainful tone. 

What did it matter? The world had grown 
strangely dark, cold, and weary. 

At the expiration of two months, she ac- 
cepted the loan, on the security of the palace. 

Daniele Falcioni, returning home, sought 
his most private sanctuary, opened a ledger, 
and inscribed these words on a blank leaf, 
with the date : — 

“ The house of the musician is mine” 

Then he took from a case a violin, tuned 
the Stradivarius with a caressing touch, and 
executed a prelude of Beethoven’s with cor- 
rectness and careful precision. 

These two acts were the keynote to the 
man’s character. 

He made the entry in his book coldly, as 
Loredano inscribed the doom of Francesco 
Foscari, for the death of father and uncle, in 
his ledger of vengeance. The age and the 
motive differed. The house of the musician 
possessed an especial fascination for him, while 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 113 

he estimated the friendless daughters with 
absolute indifference. 

Essentially a self-made man, of Hebrew 
birth, pushing his way in many channels, and 
frequently at the expense of the need of his 
fellow-creatures, Falcioni represented one ele- 
ment of the race, extending like the polyps 
of a coral-reef through all grades of modern 
Italian civilization. His family, driven from 
Spain by the Inquisition two centuries earlier, 
had found protection under the Lion of St. 
Mark. 

His father had been a pawnbroker, who 
had robbed himself to contribute to the' loan 
in support of the patriot Manin, when church 
plate, the golden ornaments of women, bronze 
bells, and copper cooking-utensils were fused 
in the common cause of resistance to the 
Croat. In turn, he was an antiquarian and 
dealer in pictures ; while his sons, already 
studying the living languages in Germany, 
England, and France, would, in their day, 
rank as bankers, men of fashion, officials of 
state. The profound veneration of the grand- 
father for the little synagogue where he had 
worshipped, lighted by the lamp before the 


114 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


reading-desk, and the Book of the Law, was 
modified in Daniele Falcioni to outward re- 
spect for the gilded temple of his day ; and 
utter scepticism or frivolity would characterize 
his children, — inevitable fruit of the maternal 
cynicism of Signora Falcioni, a harsh-featured 
dame, with big diamonds sparkling in her 
ears, much addicted to the perusal of philo- 
sophical foreign literature. 

There was, in the coarse and stout warp 
and woof of the antiquarian’s nature, a silk 
thread of finest susceptibility to music. 

Leonardo Bardi, scattering abroad his fiery 
and delicate improvisations from open case- 
ment and floating gondola, had exercised a 
profound influence over his neighbor, without 
heeding or perceiving him. The violinist 
seldom noticed his slaves. 

Daniele Falcioni would fain draw from his 
violin the secrets evoked by genius, prompted 
by all the ardor of an amateur. His short 
and stout fingers essayed the flexibility, and 
extraordinary grace of touch, characteristic of 
the virtuoso on the vibrating strings, in vain. 
A longing to possess the house, to probe the 
inmost secrets of Leonardo Bardi’s existence, 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 115 


to discover the treasures veiled from other eyes, 
predominated over the mere Hebrew instinct 
of aggrandizement. Foiled by the obstinacy of 
Marina Bardi, in the immediate realization 
of the whim, he waited, guided by the patient 
long-sightedness of the Italian in attaining an 
end : yet he made the entry in the ledger -that 
the property was already his own. The situ- 
ation of these girls was untenable. 

Several years had since elapsed. The three 
women still continued to dwell in the home of 
the Bardi family. The Gothic palace was a 
fortress besieged by the enemy across the way, 
yet braving secret distress rather than surren- 
der. Defiance of Daniele Falcioni had become 
the dominant sentiment in Marina Bardi’s 
breast. In railing at him, she mocked at fate. 
Nor was loyal Gesualda idle. Her tongue 
fanned prejudice and envy to ready hatred of 
the prudent and parsimonious rich man among 
the poor and idle of the vicinity. He op- 
pressed the orphan. A second and even a 
third loan had been asked of the usurer, whose 
coffers were so temptingly accessible. These 
sums were needed for the urgent payment of 
taxes and rates. 


116 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


For the rest, Gesualda or the dwarf Pippo 
sought the Monte di Pieta in that Palazzo 
Corner della Regina, associated with the pleas- 
ure-loving Catherine Cornaro, queen of Cy- 
prus, and better known to needy Venetians 
than to strangers, with such treasures of jew- 
els, lace, pictures, and hangings, as the interior 
could boast. 

Frugality did not dismay the household. 
The coffee of the morning, the soup of arti- 
chokes or shell-fish, and polenta , of noonday, 
the bread and fruit of evening, with a rare 
flask of wine, sufficed for their simple wants. 

On the morning after the parish festa , the 
sisters were seated in their nook of garden. 

Screened by a high boundary wall from the 
canal, the garden, like the house, had suffered 
from neglect and decay, yet retained some 
traces of former splendor. The spreading 
pomegranate-tree still blossomed ; the broken 
urns held richly colored plants, with veined 
and mottled leaves, relic of the Eastern exotics 
once cultivated with care ; the fragments of 
marble capital and cornice, inserted in the 
brickwork, indicated earlier decoration ; while 
the table of worn and furrowed stone remained, 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 117 

where a noble company may have feasted, 
sung, and laughed on summer evenings centu- 
ries ago, and the Signora Bardi entertained 
her friends. Now the lizards held undisputed 
sway among the slimy stones ; and white, fleshy, 
and hairy creatures of the spider tribe ran 
along the walls. 

“ Listen ! He was like the St. George of the 
picture, when he slays the dragon of Evil,” 
said Bianca, leaning a dimpled elbow on the 
table, and plucking a ripe fig from the store 
of fruit and vegetables just brought by Gesu- 
alda. “ He struck down the flaming wreath, 
and saved me. Madonna ! How frightened I 
was ! ” added the girl, with a shuddering move- 
ment of plump shoulders. 

Gesualda nodded as she drew a black gourd 
from the depths of her basket. 

“ Yes, he was a fine young man,” she admit- 
ted, with the moderation of mature years. 

Marina checked a yawn, and a peculiar smile 
flitted over her features. 

At this moment the dwarf Pippo appeared. 
He made a hurried salutation to Marina and 
Bianca, and announced brusquely : — 

“ I have brought you a tenant. He waits 


118 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 


to be shown the rooms. Eh ! It is a chance 
that does not fall to one’s lot every day. He 
is an artist, and a stranger.” 

This unexpected announcement surprised 
Marina, and stupefied Gesualda, while Bianca 
continued to eat the fig with the indolent grace 
inherited from her mother. Gesualda first 
recovered breath. 

“ Go along to the gobbo of the Rialto with 
your tenants,” she scoffed. “ We have not 
asked you to bring us lodgers, have we 1 
What impertinence ! ” 

“ True,” assented Pippo, with his most sly 
look. “ The usurer Daniele Falcioni would 
give me a mancia for as much as mentioning 
his second floor to an artist, but I have remem- 
bered these ladies first. How long is the 
upper story to be left to the rats and the 
mice ] ” 

Marina’s eyes sought the floor sullenly, for 
a moment ; then she rose from her seat, and 
replied, 

“ The gobbo is right. Show the rooms to 
the stranger, Gesualda.” 

Gerard Grootz waited in the damp and 
narrow court. 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 119 


Gesualda bustled forth, closely followed by 
the dwarf, sought and found a rusty key, and 
led the way to the upper landing. 

The trio had gained the threshold of Leo- 
nardo Bardi’s private apartment, and the key 
had been inserted in the lock, when a rustling 
of garments and rush of flying feet became 
audible behind them on the stair, and Marina 
Bardi, with one bound, placed herself between 
them and the closed portal. A perfume, sub- 
tile and powerful, as of Oriental amber and 
roses mingled, shed from her black tresses and 
raiment, intoxicated the senses of the young 
artist, as her vivid personality had smitten 
upon brain and eye in the church. 

“ No, no ! ” she gasped, with her hand on 
the key. “We have no right to enter here. 
It is a mistake.” 

Her agitation checked the voluble chatter 
of Gesualda, and Pippo’s quirky responses. 
The latter smiled in a satirical fashion, reveal- 
ing his teeth. 

“ Very good. We have been wrong to 
come, it seems. We will seek the Falcioni 
instead.” 

Marina frowned, and bit her lip. 


120 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ As you please,” she said dryly. 

The dwarf turned the matter over in his 
mind, and, quick to arrive at results, added, — 

“ The light may be better over yonder.” 

Marina twisted the key, and flung open 
the door with a gesture, menacing, yet full of 
dignity. 

“ Will the signore enter \ ” she said, her 
thoughtful glance scanning the features of 
Gerard Grootz, as if for confirmation of hopes 
or fears. 

His candid and youthful face seemed to re- 
assure her. The dwarf pressed in after his 
companions, with lively curiosity betrayed by 
every look and gesture. 

Here was the sanctum of the musician, 
where he had been found dead. The spot 
was shrouded in mystery. Not even Daniele 
Falcioni had ever been permitted to enter. 
The room was the long central hall of such 
buildings, with chambers opening out of it on 
either side. The floor was composed of pol- 
ished tiles, the ceiling formed of dark beams, 
while the large windows, with five lights, 
opened on a balcony similar to the one below. 

On the wall, in the rear of the chamber. 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 121 


was a large and faded picture representing 
the two female figures, Venice and Liguria, 
holding shields with their respective arms, 
and guarding Italy between them, af third 
graceful goddess, with the stork as a symbol 
of unity. 

Other pictures abounded in the place. 
Dim and blackened canvases delineated the 
tournaments of the carnival in the Piazza of 
San Marco, a tumultuous movement of fantas- 
tic shapes, masks, clowns, wizards, and colum- 
bines, like the confused images of dreams. 

In a corner, a work representing St. Jerome 
kneeling with upturned face and bared breast, 
as if imploring pardon of the heavens for an 
insupportable load of sin, was framed in 
carved wood, and obscured by dust and mil- 
dew. 

Venetian mirrors reflected the red hang- 
ings, the sombre pictures, the mute instru- 
ments of music, and statues of Moors with 
gilded tunics and turbans, supporting crystal 
candelabra, with a cold, even ghastly glimmer, 
as if the light of day had been excluded too 
long to warm and re-animate these relics of 
past luxury. 


122 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 

The caprice of Leonardo Bardi, fitful and 
easily diverted to other matters, to form here 
a museum of musical instruments, was appar- 
ent in the collection grouped together in the 
middle of the room. An organ and a .harp, 
a quaint spinet, a gravicembalo and a clavi- 
cembalo, adorned with painted landscapes, 
had each some historical value ; while lute, 
rebek, cithern, horn, and viol di gamba, pos- 
sessed personal association. 

“ The signore would have here a good light 
for painting,” said the dwarf, with a pompous 
manner. “ The window faces the north.” 

The young girl Bianca, half afraid to ex- 
plore the third story, had followed timidly, 
drawn by curiosity. 

Her eyes met those of Gerard Grootz, and 
a swift flush overspread her cheek. 

“ He is the St. George of the church,” she 
-whispered in the ear of Marina, with a dim- 
pling smile. “ Who knows but he has come 
to deliver us from the dragon ? ” 

Pippo the dwarf, noting the warm glow of 
radiant loveliness on the face of Bianca, and 
the slender yet supple form of the artist, with 
those two guardian shapes, the elder sister 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 123 


and nurse, in the background, was moved in 
his own soul, which was not unlike the depths 
of well in the palace court. 

As for Gerard, he glanced from Marina and 
Bianca, striving to frame, in the words of an 
untried language, a very natural objection to 
possession of the premises, which had occurred 
to his mind, and in which he divined the cause 
of the former’s reluctance and indecision. 

“ Shall 1 not disturb the gentleman too 
much by living here \ ” he inquired ; and his 
eyes sought involuntarily the closed doors on 
each side of the vast room, as if anticipating 
that some person, hitherto invisible, would 
emerge. 

44 What gentleman ? ” retorted Marina, 
bending an imperious look upon him. 

44 The person I saw at the window from the 
osteria yonder,” said Gerard, surprised. 

“ When ? ” insisted Marina, with increasing 
sharpness. 

44 Three nights ago,” replied the artist, after 
a moment of reflection. 

An expression of rage, bitter and intense, 
disfigured the features of Leonardo Bardi’s 
eldest daughter. 


124 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“You see ! ” she exclaimed in scornful ac- 
cents, and confronting her family. “ He has 
been here in spite of every precaution. What 
are keys to a fox like Daniele Falcione? 
Who can tell how many times he has come 'l ” 

Gesualda and Bianca were silent. 

“ I believe you ! ” echoed Pippo, with a dry 
laugh, and rubbing his hands together as if he 
enjoyed adding fuel to her wrath. 

Marina glanced beyond the casement down 
into the little campo. The next moment she 
seized the wrist of Gerard Grootz with fingers 
delicate, yet as strong as steel. 

“ Look ! Look ! Was he the man you 
saw at the window ? ” she hissed between her 
teeth. 

Daniele Falcione, unconscious of the scru- 
tiny fixed upon him, came to a flight of steps, 
and entered a gondola. Gerard peered over 
the balcony, and shook his head. 

“ Oh, no ! That was not the man,” he re- 
joined quietly. 

Marina’s nervous grasp on his wrist relaxed 
and she recoiled from his side a step. 

“ No ? ” she queried, in an altered voice. 

“ The person at the window was tall and 


THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 125 


thin, with long hair, and a remarkable profile. 
I saw his head reflected on the wall there,” 
continued Gerard, smiling. “ May I not dis- 
turb him % ” 

Marina made no response. 

Gerard turned towards his companions. 
What had happened ? Each had averted 
their eyes from him. Gesualda made a rapid 
movement of crossing herself ; the dwarf 
fumbled furtively at the charm suspended 
around his neck. Bianca looked bewildered, 
while drops of moisture were visible on the 
brow of Marina Bardi. 

Silence had fallen on the group, momen- 
tary, chilling, as of some undefinable dread, 
some invisible presence. The waiting statues 
and tarnished mirrors seemed once more to 
reign absolute over the spot. 


126 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 

44 Signore ! did your godfather stumble in 
repeating the creed when you were bap- 
tized ? ” inquired Gesualda of Gerard Grootz. 

44 1 don’t know,” replied the young pilgrim 
abstractedly. 

The very question blended strangely w T ith 
the new phases of life about him, real and 
illusory. He had reached the beautiful Sea 
.City of his ardent aspirations, he was his own 
master ; and yet the naive curiosity of the 
Venetian nurse brought back the mystery of 
his birth. Was it probable that he had a 
godfather, — the stork-child deposited on the 
miller’s threshold in the dawn? 

Gesualda was dusting the few articles of 
furniture which remained in the large sala , 
now converted into a studio, with a superflu- 
ous display of neatness and zeal. In her 
heart the woman, vigorous, humorous, and 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 127 


deeply superstitious, would not have wished 
to linger here alone ; but the presence of the 
stranger re-assured her. 

“ If your godfather made the slightest 
blunder in repeating the creed, at your bap- 
tism, you are able to see ghosts, and will be 
all your life,” continued Gesualda, pausing 
before the young man, with sparkling eyes 
and a coaxing smile. “ Perhaps the signore 
has already seen spirits. Who knows ? ” 

Gerard shook his head. His Northern 
coldness remained impassive under the kin- 
dling magnetism of her Southern fire. 

“ I have never seen ghosts,” he said, with a 
slight smile. 

“ Listen ! ” exclaimed Gesualda, with re- 
pressed excitement. 66 On the Vigil of All 
Souls, our dead quit the cemetery of San 
Michele yonder, and cross the water to re- 
visit their own homes. That is well known 
by all Christians. They wish to come back, 
especially the souls that have buried treasures 
when alive. Well ! one who can see ghosts 
may look at the spirit, a shape long and white, 
and should draw quite near to question him, 
saying, 6 Go thou first.’ Then the ghost 


128 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


seeks the spot in the house where he has 
hidden his money, points with his foot, and 
vanishes. Does the signore understand % ” 

Gerard looked at the speaker in silence, 
but the pupils of his blue eyes dilated. Ge- 
sualda compelled comprehension of her soft 
Venetian dialect, by her dramatic eloquence 
of glance and bearing, rather than the vehi- 
cle of mere speech. He must understand! 
He should understand ! His silence chilled 
and angered her. 

4 6 There are no ghosts and haunted houses 
in the land where the gentleman comes from, 
then ? ” she said, with a lowering brow. 

Gerard nodded. 

44 I have seen a haunted house, once. It 
was like this,” he assented, sketching rapidly 
on paper a mansion with gable roof and chim- 
neys visible through the trees of a neglected 
garden, where a bat skimmed low. 

64 We have no haunted houses here at 
Venice, praised be the Madonna and all the 
saints,” added Gesualda quickly, and uttered 
a forced laugh. 

44 No ? ” echoed the artist. 

44 No, no ! ” repeated the woman with a 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 129 


vehement insistance of denial; and gathering 
up her brooms and brushes she hastily de- 
parted, as if fearing to betray some further 
confidence. 

Left alone, Gerard passed his hand across 
his brow once, and continued to ply his pen- 
cil. Gradually there formed under his touch, 
the gate of a Gothic palace, with a view of 
narrow and damp court, and stairway with 
carved columns and balustrade. A ghostly 
band crossing the canal, amidst the shifting 
mists of midnight, left one shape to drift up 
the stairway. Whither was bound the wraith, 
and on what fruitless quest? The house 
slept, darkness was merging into daybreak, 
and only the phantom host was abroad on the 
lagoons. 

Gerard felt the damp chill of the court, the 
raw fog of the hour, as he wrought. 

Surely one came, with noiseless step and 
bated breath, and looked over his shoulder, 
as he worked; but when he turned his head, 
no person was there. 

Gerald Grootz had entered into immediate 
possession of his new quarters. He assured 
himself that had he searched through all the 


130 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


crooked labyrinths of the town, he could not 
have found a nook more congenial to his tastes 
and requirements, than the upper floor of the 
house of the musician. To his imaginative 
temperament, an element of the magic of the 
Sea City was the ease with which such a 
habitation had been provided for him. The 
gates of the Gothic yalazzo had opened, and 
he been invited to enter, as in a fairy-tale. 
He knew nothing of the history of Leonardo 
Bardi and his family ; nor were the people 
about him, actuated by the wary reticence of 
the race, at all likely to enlighten him con- 
cerning any matter of which he might be 
ignorant. 

Pippo, the dwarf, had been the insignificant 
instrument of the stranger’s need. Pippo, 
maliciously disposed to thwart Daniele Fal- 
cioni in finding a tenant, as much as to be- 
friend the impoverished Bardi household, had 
tapped on the artist’s door early in the morn- 
ing, and entreated him to look at a very desir- 
able studio in the quarter, before seeking 
accommodation elsewhere. 

Gerard had smiled, and readily assented. 

The terms adjusted, the musical instruments. 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 131 


books, and furniture removed, and the instal- 
lation effected, Pippo’s triumph was complete. 

He waited at the steps, and as the grand- 
father hooked the gondola of Signore Falcioni, 
drawing it to shore, made his most respectful 
obeisance to the occupant. 

“ The signore will be glad to learn that the 
house of the musician has to-day a new in- 
mate,” he announced with mocking affability. 

“ A new inmate, imp ! ” repeated the usu- 
rer, in a rough tone. “ Explain your mean- 
ing a little more clearly.” 

Pippo sidled, in a wary fashion, beyond the 
reach of the large man’s cane. 

“ As to that, I advised the ladies to rent the 
upper floor to an artist, for a studio,” contin- 
ued the dwarf. “ Diamine ! They are not 
overburdened with money, those beautiful 
girls.” 

Ever ready to flout and tease, and add the 
spark requisite to ignite the gunpowder of 
anger, Pippo was scarcely prepared for the 
result of his communication. 

Daniele Falcioni grew yellow with rage, the 
nostrils of his large aquiline nose dilated, and 
his shaggy brows met over his piercing eyes 


132 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

# in a menacing frown. He clutched his cane, 
and lifted it instinctively, as if about to strike 
his little tormentor to the earth, then repressed 
his irritation by an effort, crossed the carnpo , 
and entered his own door in silence. 

Such was the prank, the sly. revenge of 
Pippo, the dwarf, on the rich antiquarian. 
The matter partook of the nature of a burla , 
a jest, rather than a more serious revenge. 

The tale circulated through the quarter, of 
how Pippo had repaid the usurer in his own 
coin, for not giving him an alms on the parish 
festa , occasioning general merriment. Altro! 
The meanest little fly can sting. To sting, 
thwart, and baffle, was the dwarf’s retaliation 
on the large, well-grown, and strong fellow- 
creatures about him. Pippo had landed the 
stranger fish into the net of the Bardi house- 
hold, by his adroit cleverness, before the Fal- 
cioni suspected the presence of the artist at 
the Inn of the Half-Moon. 

The neighbors pronounced Pippo intelligent ; 
and he was required to repeat the story at 
every turn, now in the wine-shop, and again 
at the stall of the fruiterer, or before the 
shrine at the corner. 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 133 

Half an hour later, Daniele Falcioni once 
more emerged from his habitation, entered 
the court of the house of the musician, as- 
cended the stairway, and, without heeding the 
protest of the angry Gesualda, made his way 
to the quarters of Gerard Grootz. 

He tapped on the door, and pushed it open 
without permission. “ Good-day,” he said 
brusquely. He spoke in German, and glanced 
about the premises with ill-concealed curiosity. 

“ Good-day,” replied Gerard, who was ar- 
ranging the contents of his portfolio near the 
window. 

The visitor selected a chair, unbidden, seated 
himself, and, resting his hands on the ivory 
knob of his cane, scrutinized the young man 
intently. 

“ What is your name ? ” he demanded, with 
the pertinacity of the Italian in questioning 
a stranger. 

“ Gerard Grootz,” was the candid response. 

u Ah ! You come to our Venice to study 
color. Soon you will have this place filled 
with sketches of water-carriers, fishermen, and 
gondolier e. Well, well ! I shall be glad to see 
your studies, for I collect pictures.” 


134 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


As he uttered these words, Falcioni stared 
at the dark beams of the ceiling, the tiles of 
the floor, and the walls. 

Gerard was amused and vexed. The Ger- 
man tongue sounded pleasantly to his ear; 
and evidently this stranger might prove an art 
patron, such as a poor young artist should 
endeavor to propitiate. The physiognomy of 
Daniele Falcioni, sharply cut, aquiline, and 
hard in the lines, yet full of intelligence, did 
not displease him. Yes, he had come here to 
work. 

“What is your age?” pursued the new- 
comer, after a pause. 

“ Twenty years,” said Gerard, smiling. 

“So young? You have life before you. 
How did you know of this palazzo , this 
room?” 

“ Chance led me here,” rejoined Gerard. 

Daniele Falcioni scanned his features anew; 
and, as if dissatisfied by this response, a dis- 
agreeable smile curled his lips. 

“ You come from Germany ? ” he continued, 
after a second pause, during which his eye had 
noted every object in the room, 

“ From Amsterdam,” corrected the painter. 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 135 


The antiquarian nodded. 

44 A good school, but not like our Venice, 
with a lesson ready at every turn. Eh ! I 
have a picture in one of the private collections 
of that city, I am told. The merchant is a 
sort of nabob in trade, and owns millions.” 
These last words were pronounced with He- 
brew unction. 

Gerard dropped his pencil, and his face 
glowed with sudden animation. A swift con- 
viction darted through his mind, like light- 
ning across a cloud. 

44 The merchant’s name is Jacob Van Lim- 
burg,” he said quickly. 44 Oh, he is the best 
man in the world ! ” 

44 Very possibly that is the name,” assented 
Falcioni calmly. 44 Humph ! Jacob Van Lim- 
burg. I have the address written in my 
ledger, but my memory fails me with these 
foreigners. The picture went dirt cheap, all 
through the stupidity of that rogue of a Paris 
dealer, who pretended to mistake my figures. 
It should have brought thousands and thou- 
sands of francs more. It was a Giorgione.” 

44 A Venetian portrait,” supplemented Ge- 
rard, with extraordinary agitation. 


136 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ Surely ! A Venetian portrait,” said Daniele 
Falcioni in rueful remembrance of scanty gains, 
according to his own standard of remuneration. 

Gerard crossed the room, and seized the 
hands of the visitor in a nervous grasp. 

44 Oh, if you knew all ! ” he cried, emotion 
rendering his voice tremulous. 44 1 have seen 
the portrait. They took me to look at it years 
ago, when I was dumb and blind. What do 
I care for godfathers ! I was born then, in the 
Van Limburg gallery, before the Venetian 
portrait, although I came from the Ehine bank. 
Do you understand? Ah, tell me that you 
understand my meaning ! ” 

The passionate conviction of his tone, the 
earnestness of his glance and attitude, were 
not unlike both in Gesualda at an earlier hour 
of the same day. As the nurse had sought, for 
motives of her own, to inspire Gerard with 
awe of the Vigil of All Souls, so he now strove 
to imbue Daniele Falcioni with his own enthu- 
siasm. 

Here was the man, the living instrument, 
who had drawn forth the Giorgione from some 
obscure resting-place of palace corridor, after 
the corroding action of sea-air and rain had 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 137 

done their worst for years, to set as tlie jewel 
of a collection in a Northern land. He could 
have kissed the brown hands he held, and 
wrung in his own, with a sudden, frantic trans- 
port of joy. 

Falcioni remained unmoved by the ebullition. 
He did not repulse the youth, but measured 
him with his habitual, critical scrutiny of 
mankind. At the moment when expediency 
prompted, he heated the little iron of judicious 
inquiry in the flame of Gerard’s overflowing 
gratitude. 

“ What are you doing in this house ? Why 
are you here at all \ ” The tone was dry and 
aggressive. 

Gerard released the hands he held, and 
drew back a pace. 

“ To become like him, perhaps,” he mur- 
mured, and looked at Falcioni with anxiety and 
humility. 

His interlocutor understood, and slightly 
shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Very good. You must work to attain 
perfection,” he admonished. 

The next moment his face changed ; the dis- 
agreeable smile once more curled his thin lips, 


138 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


revealing long, sharp teeth, yellowed by the 
excessive use of tobacco. 

“ Bah ! Confess the truth,” he added. 
“You wish to live under the same roof with 
a beautiful girl. Well! She is plump and 
fair enough, and her golden hair might turn 
older and wiser heads. Have a care that the 
nurse does not scratch out your eyes, my 
friend.” 

An expression of bewilderment clouded the 
previous animation of the young man’s features. 

“ Gold hair ! ” he murmured helplessly. 
“ The light is good up here.” 

“ Suppose you marry her, and have a brood 
of children ? ” suggested Falcioni, in a grating 
voice. “ How will you live ? These women 
do not own the house. They are penniless. 
Will Monsieur Van Limburg support you? ” 

Gerard did not resent the familiarity of the 
stranger’s tone, or the brusque insist ance of his 
manner. The puzzled wonder of his face 
merged to vacancy, even chilled disappoint- 
ment. 

“ I am to work,” he repeated simply, as if 
unable to follow the other’s train of reasoning. 

“ Good,” said the antiquarian, with a com- 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 139 


plete change of bearing, and a trace of benev- 
olence perceptible in his tone. “ You shall 
paint me a picture. I give you the order. I 
can come again, and discuss the subject. Per- 
haps it may prove your chef-d'oeuvre. Auguste 
Preault pronounced painting the daughter of 
love and of light, my friend.” 

Gerard turned slowly towards the casement. 
What was love ? Where was the light ? 

In one direction the plain stretched to the 
verge of the Julian Alps, and the peaks of 
Carniola, with their summits enveloped in 
mists. In the other, the liquid pathway of 
lagoons held on its bosom Burano, crowned 
by an airy campanile, Torcello’s square and 
solid tower, and Murano, veiled by a cloud of 
smoke from the glass-works. 

As Gerard gazed on the scene, lost in 
contemplation of the changing lights rippling 
the water surface, and the drifting clouds, a 
funeral procession glided from the city walls 
in the direction of the cemetery island of San 
Michele. The priest’s boat led, with the 
acolytes robed in white in the bows, holding 
aloft the cross, and closely followed by the 
funeral barge, with the bier covered by a pall 


140 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


of black and gold. The prolonged, sobbing 
note of musical instruments smote on his ear 
like a knell, and he shivered. 

Daniel e Falcione contemplated the artist. 

“ A feeble stripling who may as well oc- 
cupy the musician’s rooms as any other place. 
He will never discover the charm, the enigma 
of the spot, whatever it may be, as long as 
he can look at the sky.” Such was his mental 
summary of the unwelcome intruder. 

Then he quitted his seat, profiting by 
Gerald’s abstraction, or wholly indifferent to 
the young man’s opinion, and made a tour of 
the place. He tapped the wall with his cane 
here and there, studied the dark picture of 
St. Jerome with the glance of a connoisseur 
and turned over several other canvases lying 
prone upon the floor, with marked contempt 
of their merit. He looked into the adjacent 
chambers, of which there were three on the 
right side, and two on the left, of the long 
central hall. The first was already converted 
into a chamber for the new lodger, whose 
requirements exacted no more than a bed in 
the middle of the floor, a chest of drawers, an 
iron wash-stand, and two chairs. 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 141 


The other rooms were bare and cheerless. 

The eye of Daniele Falcioni glistened with 
a certain cruel satisfaction at these manifes- 
tations of distress in the garrison he was 
besieging. The house had been gradually 
stripped of rich and luxurious appointments, 
in order that a couple of foolish girls might 
retain possession of their early home, instead 
of relinquishing it to him at a reasonable 
price. They must pay the penalty of their 
obstinacy. 

He crossed the sala , with another glance at 
the unconscious artist, and entered the first 
chamber on the left. 

The articles removed from the sala had been 
hastily collected here, the musical instruments 
placed in the centre, with the chest against 
the wall, and the books scattered about. 

The intruder paused, and emotion was 
perceptible on his features. He made an 
instinctive movement as if about to uncover 
his head. One would have said he breathed 
some subtile perfume, exciting and intoxicat- 
ing, in this atmosphere of a vanished great- 
ness, where all bespoke dust, mildew, and 
decay to more obtuse faculties. 


142 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

On a table, a fragment of amber silk 
covered a small object. He lifted the silk, 
and discovered a glass case, which enclosed 
an old and worn violin. It was the favorite 
Stradivarius of Leonardo Bardi. 

Falcioni contemplated the violin with pain, 
fascination, and helpless rage. He was the 
amateur worshipping the proficiency of the 
professional ; the dumb quadruped watching 
from the earth the soaring flight of the lark 
towards the heavens. He was the clay, dull 
and inanimate, and the violinist the soul-flame, 
spurning the flesh. 

Some faint vibration of sound permeated 
the chamber. Was it the jar of movement 
elsewhere in the house ? Did one of the 
cords of the spinet or harp snap, as he 
listened intently for echo, or actual speech 
with the dead 1 

The funeral procession passed, and disap- 
peared beyond the cypress-trees and high 
brick wall of the cemetery. 

Gerard Grootz awoke from his revery 
with a start. A stranger had come into the 
studio, who might prove to be an art patron. 
He turned, and discovered that Daniele Fal- 


THE ENEMY ACROSS THE WAY. 148 

cioni was no longer seated, leaning on his cane, 
but had entered the chamber on the left. 

Wholly devoid of curiosity, yet a trifle 
puzzled, Gerard followed the visitor. 

Falcioni still held the silk cover in his 
hand, and was gazing reverentially at the 
violin in the glass case, as one looks on the 
dead. 

“His Stradivarius,” he* explained to the 
wondering artist, speaking in a lowered tone, 
strangely at variance with his usual sharp 
and metallic qualities of voice. “ To hear 
him play was to have your soul drawn out 
of the body. He could do with you as he 
willed, had he but known it.” 

Gerard stooped, and picked up a sheet of 
paper, dislodged by the removal of the silk 
cover. The page, detached from a music- 
book, had an engraving above the title of a 
fantasia, of Leonardo Bardi playing on his 
famous violin. 

“ Who is he ? ” inquired Gerard. 

“ Leonardo Bardi, the father of these girls, 
and the greatest virtuoso who ever breathed,” 
replied the antiquarian, with unwonted enthu- 
siasm. 


144 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

“He lived here? Where is he now?” 
pursued Gerard slowly. 

Falcioni looked at him with keen interro- 
gation a moment, and replaced the silk cover 
over the glass case. 

“ He is dead,” he replied after a pause. 

Gerard recognized the face he had seen at 
the window of the Gothic palace on the Eve 
of All Souls. 


TWO SISTERS. 


145 


CHAPTER VI. 

TWO SISTERS. 

“ Daniele Falcioni is our enemy. He will 
yet ruin us. Ebbene ! All must take their 
chances of good and evil in this world. If the 
signore consorts with the usurer, he is a traitor 
in the house,” said Marina Bardi. 

“ I am not a traitor in the house,” replied 
Gerard Grootz, with unusual animation. 

“ What did he wish, the Falcioni?” pur- 
sued Marina, after a pause. 

“ To order a picture of me,” said the artist 
simply. “ I chose the early Venetian, sun- 
bronzed and vigorous, on the sands of Mala- 
mocco, with his hut in the background, amidst 
the poppies and rushes, dipping the first sail 
into yellow dye. Such a fisherman is of the 
Giorgione type. Then I thought of a woman, 
as I first saw her in a church, instead. It 
does not matter. The Signore Falcioni shall 
be refused admittance to my studio.” 


146 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


The island of Sant’ Elena basked in the 
autumn sunshine, like a flaming jewel, set in 
the zone of encircling lagoons. 

A glory of light, pure, transparent, and 
ineffably dazzling, was shed abroad on the 
wide expanse of waters, reflecting every mood 
of sky above, and the peaks of distant moun- 
tains. A glory of color fed the eye in the 
crimson and russet tints of slopes inland, and 
the gleam of buildings nearer at hand. A glory 
of life, joyous, elastic, esctatic, in inhaling the 
breeze, ready to caress in softest summer 
zephyr, or spring capriciously into a tempest, 
sweeping over from the Istrian and Dalmatian 
coast, stirred the pulses in tumultuous sym- 
pathy with untrammelled freedom. Over 
yonder : 

“ You will see Venice glide as though in dreams, 
Midmost a hollowed opal ; for her sky, 
Mirrored upon the ocean pavement, seems 
At dawn and eve, to build in vacancy 
A wondrous bubble dome of wizardry, 
Suspended where the light, all ways alike 
Circumfluent, upon her sphere may strike.* * 

At that date, Sant’ Elena was still the holi- 
day ground of excursionists, and unmarred by 


TWO SISTERS. 


147 


modern enterprise. The walls of the convent 
glowed in a mellow warmth through the thin- 
ning foliage ; and the roses twined about the 
slender shafts and spandrels of the hushed 
cloister, while ferns and mosses clung to the 
ledges and niches of dormitory, lavatory, and 
refectory door and embrasure. 

In the shadow of the cypress and sycamore 
trees, sat Marina Bardi. Bianca gathered 
flowers in the greensward, or watched the 
little crabs scuttle about in the water near the 
shore ; a pastime shared by Gesualda with 
childish glee. 

The sunshine permeated the frame of the 
young artist, even as the wind lifted the fair 
hair from his brow ; or was it that on the 
previous stillness and coldness of his silent 
boyhood, he was conscious of the thrilling 
awakening to a new existence of sensibilities 
unsuspected because dormant, like the gather- 
ing volume of the tide now flowing in from 
the sea? The companionship of these Vene- 
tians during the tranquil afternoon hours, on the 
tiny island, steeped in the rich warmth of the 
waning summer, and surrounded by the sweep 
of glittering waters, intoxicated the senses. 


148 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


His tongue loosened by instinct of the heart, 
rather than effort of brain and will, followed 
their flow of speech, and unconsciously caught, 
in imitation, each shade of inflection. 

He had disclaimed being a traitor in the 
house, and professed entire willingness to 
banish the art patron, Daniele Falcioni, at 
their bidding, with a gallantry worthy of a 
more mature and experienced man. 

The sisters, aided by Gesualda, had spread 
the net of soft cajolery for his unwary feet, 
their manner silken and gentle, and captured 
a willing victim. Neither frowns nor re- 
proaches had fallen to his portion after the 
visit of Danieli Falcioni to the studio. In- 
stead, he had been invited to come abroad in 
the sunny hours of matchless weather, and 
drift over the silvery lagoons, threading the 
tangled wealth of weed and reef about fairy 
islets dreaming over their own reflections of 
tower and balcony in the water mirror. 

Then Marina Bardi, hitherto gentle and 
languid of speech and movement, had un- 
sheathed her little feminine weapon of defi- 
ance and hatred of the usurer swiftly, suddenly ; 
and Gerard had yielded a half-startled acqui- 


TWO SISTERS. 


149 


escence to her wishes. How could he do 
otherwise ] 

Marina sat in the shadow of the cypress- 
trees, and a vine, vivid scarlet with the chan- 
ging leaf, swayed across the dilapidated wall 
above her head. The outline of her form, 
supple and graceful, was revealed to advan- 
tage by her robe, in which blended the vary- 
ing tints of green and purple, dear to the 
Venetian. Her black hair, drawn low across 
the forehead, was coiled in a luxuriant mass 
at the back of the head, and decked with sev- 
eral crimson roses whose petals fell on her 
shoulder from time to time. The beauty of 
delicate eyebrows, a mouth full, tender, and 
passionate, even in repression, and a nose 
slightly aquiline, was enhanced by the dreamy 
tranquillity of her mood, the hour, the spot. 

The day seemed to shed a mellow radiance 
over her listless figure, deepen the shadowy 
meaning ever slumbering in the depths of her 
dark eyes, and linger on the finely moulded 
arm, wrist, and hand, as her restless fingers 
plucked apart the roses heaped in her lap by 
Bianca, scattering them slowly on the ground. 

She accepted Gerard’s sacrifice with a smile 


150 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


transient and mocking, and a glance full in 
his face which conveyed her gratitude in one 
blinding flash of intelligence, then lapsed into 
her former abstraction. She might have been 
meditating on the tombs of the Giustiniani 
and the Loredano near by, or the relics of that 
more majestic shade of history Saint Helena. 

Bianca’s voice, fresh, silver, and caressing, 
was never silent; and Bianca’s laughter, as 
sweet as the note of a bird, brought even a 
responsive smile to the withered visage of an 
aged sacristan. Why should not one laugh 
and sing on such a day ? How could one help 
laughing and singing? Everybody could not 
be expected to sigh, weep, and lament, when 
the world is so gay and beautiful ! The little 
wavelets glittered, and made soft cooing mur- 
murs to Bianca’s ear ; the lizards came out of 
their nooks to gaze at her. And Bianca was 
worthy of a glance. Her sixteen years asserted 
a right to be admired, by a subtile play of 
new-born coquetry in the presence of the 
stranger youth Gerard Grootz. Her slender 
form was clad in red, and she had thrust roses 
also, into the masses of her blonde tresses, be- 
hind one delicately curved ear ; colors which 


TWO SISTERS. 


151 


contrasted. vividly with the fairness of her skin, 
rounded throat, and dimpled chin. Laughter 
lurked beneath the full and veined lids of 
her soft eyes, now raised towards Gerard in 
arch questionings, and again modestly lowered, 
while the rosy lips parted to reveal small white 
teeth. 

Gesualda, inhaling the salt breath of her 
native air with full lungs, regarded her nurs- 
ling with pride and intuitive uneasiness, as 
guardian of the pretty and flighty blonde head. 

A good and docile child was Bianca, and 
not subject to black moods of irritability like 
the unhappy Marina. Gesualda’s youngest 
foster-child had been reared as a true Venetian 
should be, on such spiritual fare as the “ Dot- 
trina Cristiana,” and with a good memory and 
nice appreciation of saints’ festivals as marked 
by the eating of chestnuts on St. Martin’s Day, 
or beans at All Souls’, or an almond-cake at 
Christmas, in the routine of the year. 

Had not Bianca received a book and a medal 
as a child, for her part in the disputa of the 
parish church, which was all hung with crim- 
son cloth and garlands for the ceremony, when 
three tiny creatures attired in blue, the color 




152 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

of the Madonna, had gone in the midst of the 
juvenile band, wearing black-and-white veils, 
to recite the catechism in a manner so marvel- 
lous as to move all hearts ? 

Not that Leonardo Bardi, unnatural parent, 
cared. Not he ! Bianca had been served 
with her feast of buns, paste-dolci , and Cyprus 
wine, afterwards, notwithstanding ; thanks to 
her faithful Gesualda. 

What young girl knew better the legends 
of saints and miracles, with which the Sea 
City abounds, than Bianca ? The chances were 
that she still firmly believed in the angels of 
the house, who carry up to heaven each sixty 
minutes its actions to be judged, and the chil- 
dren may hear the rustle of invisible wings. 
Madonna ! How well she told, the little one, 
about the Doge Giacomo Tiepolo when he 
dreamed of seeing the ground all covered with 
roses, where doves flew about, having gold 
crosses on their heads, and angels descending 
from the sky, swaying golden censers, on the 
spot where he ^as clearly to found a convent 
and church ! 

What a pleasure it was to hear Bianca de- 
scribe the banquet served in the sola of the 


TWO SISTERS. 


153 


Council of Ten for the French king, when 
every article was made of sugar, from the table- 
cloth and napkin to the plate of the prince, 
representing a queen seated on two tigers ! 
That was like a fairy-tale ; and one might eat 
all, even to the knives and forks ! 

Here was a young man come to trouble still 
more a harassed household. What manner 
of man was he ? Soft, tractable, and innocent 
enough in appearance, Gesualda reasoned, yet 
how could one he assured of any thing 1 She 
gave him one of those looks, keen, suspicious, 
and thoughtful, so often discernible on the 
features of Italian maturity. Then she took 
up the thread of conversation where it had 
dropped, with the brusque familiarity peculiar 
to her. 

“ As to that, one must live. If an artist 
paints pictures, he should sell them. Daniele 
Falcioni may need to be handled with a silken 
glove. Who knows ? ” 

Gesualda sighed, seated on the grass, where 
she resembled a great variegated blossom, in a 
gown of yellow, russet, and brown. 

Marina moved with an impatient gesture, as 
if the suggestion wounded her. 


154 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ I can find another patron,” retorted Gerard 
lightly, and suffered Bianca to lead him away 
to learn the names of different plants and 
flowers. 

Never was instructress more bewitching, or 
pupil more docile. Gerard must inhale the 
fragrance of certain leaves as tendered by a 
hand, plump, white as milk, and symmetrical, 
with a rosy palm. Gerard must carefully re- 
peat a musical rhyme affirming that here the 
pomegranate blossoms glowed like fire in the 
month of July; and the blithe teacher blushed 
like the flower she praised, and broke into 
merry laughter. 

The pair paused to gather a plume of fern 
in an angle of the wall. 

“ Next year we must seek the violets here,” 
said Bianca, drawing the fern-frond across her 
cheek musingly. 

“ Yes ; next year,” assented Gerard, in a 
still more dreamy tone. 

The sunset hour had come, warming the 
tranquil waters to saffron and pink hues. 
The deep red of the brick of San Giorgio 
Maggiore glowed in the warm light ; and be- 
yond, the dome of the church of Santa Maria 


TWO SISTERS. 


155 


della Salute resembled a bulb of mother-of- 
pearl, about to separate from the adjacent 
roofs, and float away seawards. 

A market-boat, piled high with golden 
pumpkins, tomatoes, and figs, drifted slowly 
past. The barges, laden with sweet water 
from the mainland for the wells of the city, 
at an earlier hour, were steering a homeward 
course. A raft of Tyrolese lumber, having the 
huts of the crew built on the fragrant logs, 
crept towards its destination the quay. 

A languor of summer sunshine steeped the 
senses, in the waning year, even as the splen- 
dor of perishing glories lingered about canal 
and piazza of the city. 

Gesualda reminded Gerard and Bianca of 
the lateness of the hour, in somewhat dry 
fashion. 

“ Oh, do not return home yet ! ” cried 
Bianca, as they entered the gondola. “ Let 
us go far, far out on the waters, sister mine. 
Soon the moon will rise.” 

The gayety of the young girl infected her 
companions, and put fresh vigor into the stal- 
wart arm of the gondoliere. The light craft 
skimmed along the channel marked by the 


156 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


piles, and loitered about the islands, until day 
had waned, twilight deepened, and the moon 
rose in a clear sky, shedding afar the silvery 
rays of her triumphant progress. 

The moments passed softly, imperceptibly, 
as the ripples ebbed and flowed on the sedgy 
shore skirted by the gondola. Gradually the 
laughter of Bianca and the loquacity of Gesu- 
alda sank to half-murmured song, with inter- 
vals of silence, or the gondolier e, bending to 
his oar with rapid stroke, took up the refrain. 
Peace was shed down from the serene depths 
of heaven, and brooded over the whispering 
waters. 

Suddenly another gondola appeared, sped 
forward, and came into sharp collision with 
the idly drifting boat. Both craft rocked in 
the perilous contact, swerved, and separated, 
with mutual recriminations on the part of the 
gondoliere. 

The occupants of the second gondola 
scarcely heeded the accident. A man, young, 
handsome, and impassioned, and a woman, 
pensive, tender, receptive, were floating in the 
moon’s track, absorbed in each other, and 
oblivious of the rest of the world. It was a 


TWO SISTERS. 


157 


vision of earthly happiness, a flash, clearly- 
perceptible to Gerard and his companions, yet 
lost as soon as found. 

Marina Bardi sprang to her feet with a half- 
articulate cry, and stretched forth her hands 
towards the fast-receding boat. 

- 44 Enrico ! ” she exclaimed, in a tone of 
anguish. “ Enrico here in Venice again? 
Oh, mio innamorato ! Who is she, then?” 

A shudder of powerful emotion shook 
the frame of Leonardo Bardi’s unfortunate 
daughter. Every nerve and fibre of her body 
appeared to vibrate and pulsate beneath the 
shock of an unexpected meeting ; her mobile 
features became convulsed with passion, and 
the red roses fell from her hair into the 
water. 

Gesualda moved to her side, and took her 
hands. 

44 No, no, carina , you are mistaken,” she 
urged soothingly. 44 That man was not the 
capitan. This one is shorter and stouter, and 
quite different in many ways, I assure you. 
He is a foreigner speaking another language. 
I heard his very words, child. — Bianca, tell 
her it is not the officer.” 


158 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

“ Oh, no,” faltered Bianca. “He is more 
blonde.” 

“ You lie ! ” hissed Marina, transported by 
rage. For a moment she gazed after the 
rapidly vanishing gondola, her neck curved, 
while her head appeared to flatten like that 
of a snake. If the speeding bolt of jealous 
hatred could have killed the unconscious stran- 
ger in the other boat, the look of Marina 
Bardi would have thus slain a dreaded rival. 

The next instant, actuated by a revulsion of 
despair, she made a quick and desperate effort 
to throw herself into the lagoon. The vigilant 
nurse, watching every gesture, anticipated the 
rash movement, and wound her strong arms 
around the supple form of her charge, draw- 
ing her back as much by tenacity of will as 
force of muscle. 

“ Thou shalt not do it, foolish one,” she 
panted. 

There was a brief struggle between the two 
women, of which the gondoliere and Gerard 
were bewildered and paralyzed spectators, in- 
termingled with caresses and reproaches on 
the part of the nurse. 

At length the latter released her hold ab- 


TWO SISTERS. 


159 


ruptly, drew herself up with menacing dignity, 
and said fiercely, — 

“ Go, then, and I will follow. We will 
both leave the child alone : ” she pointed to 
Bianca. 

Her words had an immediate influence. 
Marina turned her sombre glance on her sister 
mechanically, and shrank down among the 
cushions once more with a sigh of weariness 
and submission. 

Gesualda, triumphant, wisely held her peace, 
after giving a brief direction to the gondoliere 
to turn homeward. 

In the mean while, Bianca had nestled close 
to Gerard’s side, trembling with terror. Her 
hair brushed the neck of the young man as 
she whispered in his ear, — 

“ Marina imagines she sees her lover in 
every stranger. Oh, it is terrible ! He was 
faithless, you know.” 

Gerard put his arm about the girl, and drew 
her nearer to him, with an instinct of protec- 
tion. Bianca was so young, ignorant, and 
confiding, that her very innocence touched 
him. In the swift change of mood which had 
come over Marina, he felt confused and help- 


160 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

less, and obeyed the impulse only of shielding 
the younger sister from a conflict which he did 
not fully comprehend. 44 Eh ! It is best not 
to meddle with a madwoman,” muttered the 
gondoliere , and maintained a conservative bear- 
ing towards his fare. 

Gesualda took a rosary of coral beads from 
her pocket, and recited prayers with an osten- 
tatious display of piety doubtless intended as 
a rebuke. 

The evening bells began to softly peal on 
the night, echoing in fitful pulsations from city 
to distant island. 

The familiar steps gained, Marina quitted 
the boat heavily, guided by the faithful 
Gesualda. 

Pippo waited with the grandfather, his bird- 
cage held under his arm. The parrakeets, 
adapting themselves to circumstances, were 
asleep, pressed closely together in little ruffled 
balls of green feathers. The dwarf smiled 
in his most envious and malevolent fashion, as 
he inspected the group of returned holiday 
seekers. 

Bianca lingered, under pretence of returning 
his greeting. 


TWO SJSTERS. 


161 


“ Foolish Pippo, not to come out on the 
lagoons,” she said, dropping him a rose. 

“For that matter, signor ina, we have had 
fine music on the piazza to-night,” he retorted 
in a surly tone. 

No ; he would not go on the water. He 
was afraid of the treacherous, gliding currents. 
None the less did he resent the boldness and 
consequent enjoyment of others. Bianca was 
only a silly maiden, and yet she could mock 
at him, for not venturing abroad in fine 
weather. He cast the rose on the stones, and' 
trampled upon the flower in the darkness, as 
a vent to ill-humor. 

The moonlight shone white and cold on the 
stairway and court as the party entered, and 
the well cast a sharp shadow across the 
pavement. 

Bianca followed her sister and nurse with 
reluctance. She slipped her hand within that 
of Gerard, with a clinging, thrilling clasp. 

“ Good - night, and sweet repose,” she 
whispered. 

“ Good-night, and sweet repose,” he echoed. 

They paused thus on the landing, and looked 
into each others eyes with a smile. 


162 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Then Gerard ascended to the upper floor, 
carrying with him the perfume of flowers, the 
scent of ferns clinging to cloister arches and 
columns, the damp and briny odors of seaweed. 

He could not sleep. The idyl of the island, 
with merry Bianca for a companion, yvould 
have brought roseate slumbers to his pillow, 
smile on lip. The remembrance of Marina, 
standing in the boat, quivering with passion, 
drove sleep from his eyelids, and crowded his 
brain with feverish images. 

He rose, dressed, and went out into the 
studio. How vast and cold the sala appeared, 
in the prevailing obscurity ! The very pictures 
on the walls acquired a certain significance. 
The Italy of the allegorical group seemed to 
observe Gerard’s movements with grave atten- 
tion. The St. Jerome became pallid in the 
lamp’s ray, as if surrounded by a halo. 

Gerard opened the window, and stepped 
forth on the baicony. The moon was set, and 
the solemn grayness and silence of the hour 
pervaded earth and sky. A faint sound 
reached the ear of the young man, and com- 
pelled him to listen. Was it the water fretting 
against the steps and bridge, the soughing of 


TWO SISTERS. 


163 


the wind, or the lament of a human voice ? 
He could not determine, and the murmur 
tantalized, exasperated his nerves. 

He returned to the studio, and closed the 
casement before lighting the candles in a brass 
candelabra. 

Then he adjusted an easel, and began to 
trace the figure of a woman in a boat. 

No semblance of Fortune, white-robed, in 
her skiff, supporting a globe against her knee, 
while little naked genii play about her, oc- 
curred to Gerard Grootz, as it once did to 
Giovanni Bellini. The restless mood of the 
artist found relief in work. The image of 
Marina Bardi, abandoned by the lover she 
beholds flitting past her on the lagoon, with 
another girl, powerless to detain or slay, and 
swaying in the gondola under the shock of 
surprise and jealousy, grew beneath his hand. 
Gradually, as he wrought, the shape became 
that of the moon, as portrayed by Egyptian 
sculpture, and adopted by the early Venetians. 
The boat acquired the curves of the crescent, 
and the radiance of the planet was shed in 
rippling folds of drapery upon the glancing 


waves. 


164 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Daybreak found him still absorbed in the 
task. 

The Bardi family remained invisible on 
that day. Gerard did not venture to intrude 
on their privacy, although he had been 
recently included in their circle. 

Gesualda, heavy-eyed, yellow, and sullen, 
with her gray hair in disorder, toiled up-stairs 
with her copper vessel brimming with water, 
and uttered a lugubrious sigh when saluted 
by the tenant. Her manner may have in- 
vited confidential questioning, but Gerard 
refrained from comment. He took his hat, 
instead, and, entering the first gondola, suf- 
ered himself to be conveyed far away from 
the house of the musician. He did not re- 
turn until nine o’clock in the evening. 

The sketch of the moon confronted him. 
Wearied yet refreshed he sought his bed. 

After midnight a sound awakened him. 
Steps light and hesitating were audible on 
the tiles of the sala. Before he realized 
whether he was fully awake, or still dreamed, 
Gerard had sprang from his couch, and 
gained the threshold of his chamber, where 
he paused, with loudly beating heart, and 


TWO SISTERS. 


165 


peered through the aperture of half-opened 
door. 

Marina Bardi slowly advanced down the 
long room, holding an oil-lamp of classical 
shape in her hand. 

She wore the flimsy robe of amber wool, 
which had caught the mists of golden sun- 
shine in the apse of San Marco, on the after- 
noon when Gerard first saw her ; and her 
black hair fell in disorder on her shoulders. 

Her presence at this hour startled the 
spectator. His first conviction was that she 
moved in a somnambulistic trance, from the 
pallor of her cheek, and the fixed gaze of her 
mournful eyes. Her indecision, the unquiet 
glances she cast about the apartment, the 
start of superstition with which she looked 
over her shoulder at some slight noise, 
speedily convinced him of her wakefulness, 
and that she was drawn towards an object 
alike attractive and repellent to her. The 
middle of the sala gained, she paused, and 
held the lamp above her head, as if to pierce 
the shadows, and like a soul in doubt. 

Gerard held his breath, while a cold shud- 
der of fear swept over him. Why was she 


166 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

there ? What was she about to do ? The 
same sense of powerlessness to avert impend- 
ing and invisible evil, which he had experi- 
enced in the gondola, again overwhelmed the 
faculties of the spectator. 

After a pause of interminable duration to 
Gerard, Marina turned slowly, and entered 
the room containing the collection of her 
father. 

Gerard groped for his clothes in a panic of 
haste. He must see what she was doing in 
that chamber. Chains, such as the Ten once 
forged for their prisoners, could not have held 
him at the moment. The impulse to go to 
her seized and shook him like a tempest. 
Surely there was some frenzy of madness 
abroad in the stillness of the Venetian night. 

Marina gazed about her absently, as if 
striving to collect her own thoughts, and 
placed her lamp on the desk. Her next step 
was to raise the lid of the chest, and search 
amidst the debris of contents until she found 
a volume bound in faded morocco, and fas- 
tened with gilt clasps. She lifted the book 
on the desk, opened it, and traced the lines 
with her finger, as she read. 


TWO SISTERS. 


167 


Slips of paper twisted into odd shapes, 
morsels of ribbon, and dried flowers fluttered 
unheeded to the floor, as she scanned the con- 
tents with a feverish eagerness of manner. 

At the head of the page was inscribed the 
name of Leonardo Bardi, and a date of 
twenty years before. 

Marina uttered a stifled exclamation. The 
musician had been married a few months 
when he wrote these words : — 

“ Life is an intolerable weariness, at times . 
Why live?” 

The characters were faded, and the sheets 
stained with mildew; yet the words exercised 
over the mind of the tardy reader a fatal spell 
of fascination. 

Gesualda had discovered the book in the 
chest when the articles were removed to 
convert the sola into a studio. Mistress 
and servant had pored over the contents in 
hopes of discovering some clew to the last 
wishes of the violinist ; but in vain, for the 
volume had evidently been used long ago, and 
subsequently forgotten. 

Bars of music as bizarre and weird as the 
brain of the composer, and heads, sketched 


168 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


with a pen, of imps and goblins, formed a 
margin for the written thought. 

Now Marina returned, lured by the remem- 
brance of a line which had recurred to her 
memory with peculiar vividness, afterward. 

She continued with parted lips, and dilating 
eyes : — 

“ Pliny asserts that man has the power of 
flying to the tomb, since the earth is filled 
with herbs by means of which the weary may 
find a rapid and painless death. Ovid, on the 
contrary, urged that in extreme distress it is 
easy to despise life, and that true courage con- 
sists in enduring it.” 

Marina turned another leaf, and forgetting 
herself in these speculations, murmured aloud : 

“ Seneca says, 4 To death alone it is due, 
that life is not a punishment, and erect, be- 
neath the frowns of fortune, I can preserve 
my mind unshaken, and master of itself. I 
have one to whom I can appeal. I see the 
rack, the scourge, the instruments of torture 
adapted to every limb and every nerve ; but I 
also see Death. She stands beyond my savage 
enemies. Slavery loses its bitterness when 
by a step I can pass to liberty. Against all 


TWO SISTERS. 


169 


the injuries of life, I have the refuge of death. 
Wherever I look, there is the end of evils. 
You see that yawning precipice : there you 
may descend to liberty. You see that river, 
that sea, that well : liberty sits at the bottom. 
Do you seek the way to freedom? You may 
find it in every vein of your body . 7 ” 

The readers voice sank to a whisper. 

In the chamber, the harp and the organ 
loomed as strange and ghostly shapes in the 
obscurity, while the light of the oil-lamp fell 
full on Marina’s face and hair. 

Gerard Grootz approached her quietly. 
An unwonted fire burned in the depths of his 
blue eyes, and his features betrayed powerful 
emotion. 

Marina turned, and looked at him in silence. 
She evinced no surprise at his presence. 

“ Live ! ” murmured the young man, with 
dry and trembling lips. “ Life is beautiful, 
and only death is repulsive, hideous.” 

He extended his hand, and touched her inert 
fingers, her arm, her shoulder, as if desirous 
to assure himself of her tangible reality. 

Marina’s face softened ; and in her dark eyes 
surprise, doubt, sudden hope, gleamed. 


170 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“I am the woman of whom you dream 
for your first picture ? ” she questioned, half 
imperiously, half tenderly ; and her gaze con- 
tinued to search his face. 

44 Yes,” he murmured. 44 I saw you in the 
church of San Marco on the day of my arrival. 
You wore this robe, and the light made it shine 
like pure gold.” 

Marina bent her head in assent, with a 
thoughtful expression. 

44 True. I was there for Bianca to pray. 
I do not pray now. You understand \ The 
Madonna and the saints have forgotten me.” 

44 Live ! ” repeated Gerard Grootz. 

All else had vanished save that head of 
lustrous black hair, and those eyes looking 
into his troubled soul, from beneath the ‘low 
smooth brow. In the charm of her presence, 
with the perfume of the amber and roses 
enveloping him, Gerard was ready to drink 
of any poisoned chalice she might press to his 
lips. 

Gesualda, suspicious and angry in appear- 
ance, entered the room. 

44 Is it not enough for a woman of my years, 
to slave all day in the service of the family, 


TWO SISTERS. 


171 


without being forced to play the part of senti- 
nel at night, as well ? ” she grumbled. 

Her piercing glance turned from Gerard to 
the book on the desk. 

“ There is no good in this thing,” she added, 
in a cross tone. “ See ! I have turned every 
page, and not found as much as a rag of paper 
money, Austrian, Russian, or English, such as 
the master used more than once to light his 
cigar.” 

Marina smiled. 

“ Poor Gesualda ! The written words are 
nothing to thee,” she replied gently. 

“What does she mean'?” cried the nurse, 
peering at Gerard. 

The latter uttered a sigh, like one awaken- 
ing from profound sleep, and passed his hand 
across his brow. “Put the book away,” he 
entreated, after a pause. 

Marina closed and clasped the volume, then, 
moved by a sudden impulse, turned and gave 
it into the charge of the artist. 

“ Keep it,” she said softly. “ Poor father ! 
The book is an evil thing, a snake to bite, a 
scorpion to sting. There ! Take it away out 
of myjsight forever, amico mio!” 


172 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 


CHAPTER VII. 

LOYE. 

Bianca, wearing a little fichu of blue silk 
knotted coquettishly about her shoulders, 
opened a window overlooking the court, and 
leaned in the embrasure, feeding her sole 
playmate, a tame pigeon. 

True Venetian, the young girl cared for 
no other pets than birds, and would have 
delighted in the possession of an aviary, 
where in an atmosphere redolent of light, 
warmth, and flowers, tropical songsters spread 
their rainbow of plumage in airy motion of 
flight. 

The house was dull, Gesualda surly, and 
Marina sunk in one of her moods of profound 
melancholy and despondency after the en- 
counter with a handsome gentleman who 
resembled her lover. Bianca was dissatisfied, 
herself. Why should they not go out on the 
water every day, and gather roses on the 


LOVE. 


173 


islands? Life should have as many festas as 
penances, at least. Her nature, tractable and 
impressionable, rebelled against the bondage 
of her sisters sombre absorption. 

The girl pouted, and allowed the pigeon to 
strut on the ledge, with inflated chest, and 
iridized crest gleaming emerald and purple in 
the sunshine. 

The next moment she laughed, and began 
to sing softly, — 

“Now blessings on Matteo’s kindly art ! 

He’s made a window after my own heart ; 

He has not made it me too low or high, 

And so I see my love when he goes by.” 

Gerard Grootz descended from the upper 
floor, and, emerging on the landing of the 
outer stairway, paused to return Bianca’s 
smiling greeting. 

The maiden with her blue fichu , and the 
sunshine resting on her fair hair, ceased to 
sing, gained additional color in her round 
cheek, and, curving her white throat with an 
undulation like the pigeon’s, launched a mag- 
netic glance at the young man through her 
long and silky eyelashes. 


174 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ Good-morning, signore. Ah! We have 
no festa to-day.” 

“ Shall we visit Sant’ Elena again?” retorted 
Gerard. 

Bianca shook her head, and glanced over 
her shoulder into the gloomy interior of the 
house, with an expressive gesture. 

The dwarf Pippo, with the cage of birds in 
his hand, crept into the court. The pigeon, 
having received the grain from his mistress, 
spread strong white wings, and flew up over 
the roof. 

“ Stupid little dwarf ! ” teased Bianca at 
her casement. “ Why did you not go on the 
lagoon with us yesterday ? ” 

Pippo removed his ragged hat, and made a 
low obeisance. 

“ I wait until the sea comes to me, dear 
signorina” he retorted, with good-humor. 

“ The sea makes me also afraid, some- 
times,” said Bianca, with a facile adaptation to 
the prejudices of the companion of the mo- 
ment, which would serve as tact in the coinage 
of the world. “ With our lagoons it is 
different, you know.” 

Gerard lingered on the step contemplating 


LOVE. 


175 


the girl, whose youth and brightness brought 
back a glow of warmth to his fatigued senses, 
and banished the painful impressions of the 
previous night. 

Marina Bardi in her yellow robe, and with 
loosened hair, glowing with a beauty mysteri- 
ous, baleful, terrible, in the very utterance of 
her own dark thoughts, even as her lamp 
lighted the heavy shadows shrouding the 
chamber of the dead musician, faded before 
the image of Bianca, joyous, petulant, with 
the down of childhood still lingering on her 
features, basking in the full light of morning. 

The artist inhaled the fragrance of this 
presence, as it were, dispelling phantoms of 
evil; and his own brow cleared, his mouth grew 
tender, his eye moist. 

Bianca leaned from the window, drawn by 
some subtile movement of sympathy, while 
Gerard continued to gaze up at her. 

Down below in the court, the dwarf Pippo 
scrutinized both, with an odd expression of 
gravity, and round unwinking eyes. 

“ One laughs, and another hurls herself into 
the depths of this well, all for love,” mused 
the tiny philosopher, tapping the carved lid 


176 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

with his finger. “ Women are strange crea- 
tures.” 

“ Where are you going ? ” inquired Bianca, 
in a low tone. 

“ To tell the usurer that I cannot execute 
his order,” replied Gerard. “ He has been 
here again when I was out.” 

Another casement had opened during this 
colloquy, and Marina Bardi interposed. 

“ I was wrong to thwart you yesterday. 
Go to Daniele Falcioni, and tell him, instead, 
that you will paint him a picture. Stay ! 
Ask him if the work shall be my portrait, 
taken in a costume of your own selection.” 

Her tone was soft, deliberate, and persua- 
sive. 

Fresh from a bath, and the cares of the 
toilet, her hair was arranged in lustrous coils 
secured with gilded pins, while her olive skin 
had the polish of alabaster, tending to bloom 
on cheek and lip. There was something feline 
in the placid tranquillity of her slumberous 
eyes, as of certain creatures beautiful, terrible, 
and fierce, basking in warmth and contentment. 

Pippo uttered a subdued exclamation. 

“ The devil ! Two girls and one lover. 


LOVE. 


177 


Something will come of that. We shall see. 
All in good time, we shall see ! ” 

He imparted this confidence to his tiny 
slaves, the parrakeets, and crept away to 
indulge in a fit of mad hilarity on the steps. 
During the day, he was subject to these 
lapses into prolonged laughter ; but he would 
make no explanation of the secret source of 
his amusement, to the grandfather. The 
grandfather was full of garrulous curiosity, 
but his hearing was no longer acute, and his 
senses keen to perception. 

The old ganzero was not to be trusted with 
an idea which appealed irresistibly to the 
crooked and malicious nature of his grand- 
child. Therefore Pippo hugged himself, 
from time to time, with prolonged chuck- 
ling, or whispered marvellous conjectures to 
his feathered pets. The parrakeets cocked 
their heads on one side, as if they fully com- 
prehended his meaning. 

“ We shall see, Niccolo w,” he repeated, 
smoothing the bird’s crest, as it perched on 
his finger. 

“ Corpo di Bacco ! I was born straight, and 
with good legs, little one,” mumbled the 


178 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


grandfather, suspicious of youthful supercil- 
iousness in this reticence, and never losing 
an occasion to reproach the dwarf for his 
deformity, with a cruelty inherent in the 
race. 

Gerard sought Daniele Falcioni. Pie was 
amazed and delighted at this whimsical change 
of purpose in Marina Bardi. 

He found the collector in his treasure- 
house, in an alcove stocked with Murano 
ware. The shimmer of molten gems, the 
graceful forms of flowers, the pellucid tints 
of sea-water as it ripples over coral-reefs 
and tropical sands, mingled in the chandeliers 
of the ceiling, the mirrors of the walls, the 
dishes, standards, and chalice cups of table 
and bracket. 

P'alcioni was examining some specimens of 
recent purchase, to verify the work of Angelo 
Berovien in a goblet of ruby and purple hues, 
and a slender blue vase wreathed with white 
flowers. 

He held up to the light a glass of lace-work 
design, in which the sunshine seemed to filter 
through opaque threads ; and a tazza of irreg- 
ular form, with the surface broken into a 


LOVE . 


1T9 


thousand sparkling cracks, as if powdered 
with frost. 

He received Gerard somewhat dryly, and 
speedily learned the purpose of his visit. 

“ So the signorina consents to your painting 
a picture for me,” he said, with an inflection 
of mockery in his tone. “ That is kind ! ” 

“ I am to make her portrait, if you wish,” 
• said Gerard simply. 

“ Ah ! ” Daniele Falcioni looked at him 
keenly. 

The artist was gazing about him at the 
riches of this interior, in an ecstasy of delight. 

In his boyhood he had paused, in incredu- 
lous surprise, before a single chandelier in 
the Van Limburg gallery. Now he was sur- 
rounded by whole prisms of the crystal, fash- 
ioned into every conceivable design of airy 
fragility, as if Falcioni were a giant playmate, 
and had blown these bubbles from a magic 
pipe. 

The walls were lined with pieces of furni- 
ture, wrought by monks in the cloisters of 
the eighteenth century, of richly colored 
woods, inlaid with ivory and pearl, fragments 
of stamped leather, the red damask used in 


180 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


palace and castle in the Middle Ages, and 
tapestry such as must not exceed the cost of 
one hundred and fifty golden ducats for a 
chamber in 1477. 

The breastplate of a crusader, forged at 
Antwerp or Bruges, wherein to storm Zara, 
hung limp beside standards of arms, shields, 
and Turkish banners of frayed silk, against a 
chimney-piece carved with elaborate designs 
of Sirens and Cupids. 

Illuminated missals, parchments, specimens 
of early printing, when Aldus abandoned the 
massive folio for the ubiquitous octavo, vases, 
trinkets of enamel, coral, amber, and porce- 
lain, bewildered yet attracted the eye on every 
side by their profusion and variety. 

An ebony table on the right held several 
cases of coins, dating from the denari imperiali 
of Ludovico and Lothair of 814 to the silver 
ducat of 1561. 

On the left a similar stand of niello - work 
supported several chess-boards of great ele- 
gance, with pawns of gold and rock crystal. 

Daniele Falcioni’s shop was the net receiv- 
ing all the relics of poverty, extravagance, 
and neglect. 


LOVE . 


181 


“How long will you remain in that house?” 
he questioned, replacing the cup on the shelf. 

Gerard sighed involuntarily. 

“I have a year given to me for study. 
Afterwards I do not know.” His words were 
vague, and his bearing abstracted. 

Falcioni reflected a moment, drew a red 
silk handkerchief from the pocket of his coat, 
and rubbed his bald forehead. 

“ Come ! Let us select a costume for the 
new model,” he finally suggested, with a sar- 
castic smile. 

He led the way through a dark and narrow 
passage to a room, lofty rather than spacious, 
and lighted from a large window on the side 
of the campo. 

The furniture here was of ancient design, 
consisting of carved presses and chests, 
painted or inlaid, and chairs of walnut, 
covered with tarnished embroideries. 

Gerard followed in silence, and watched his 
companion unlock the presses, revealing the 
contents, with artistic enthusiasm in the tex- 
ture and color of sumptuous apparel, mingled 
with a boyish curiosity. 

Daniele Falcioni was justly .proud of his 


182 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


hoard of Venetian costumes. He kept a 
jealous guard on the presses, intending to 
furnish a unique collection at some world’s 
exhibition, for the glory of his native city, and 
in his own name. 

The very act of showing these articles to 
Gerard was an honor which the youth failed 
to fully realize ; while the offer to allow him to 
make use of them evinced a deeper motive 
than such mere generosity on the part of the 
Bardi creditor. 

“ Shall our young lady pose as a Dogaressa?” 
mocked Falcioni, adjusting on a lay figure a 
robe of gold brocade, trimmed with fur. “ She 
must wear the Phrygian cap, enclosing the 
ducal crown, strings of pearls around the neck, 
and a gold chain, starred with jewels, wrought 
by the goldsmiths of Rialto. Do not forget 
that she carries a little flag in her hand.” 

“ How magnificent ! ” murmured Gerard, 
touching the fabric reverentially. 

“ Well! How do you like our noble dam- 
sel thus tricked out, even in imagination \ ” 
pursued Falcioni, speaking impatiently, even 
contemptuously, as if the farce were commen- 
cing to weary him. 


LOVE. 


183 


Gerard shook his head. 

“ No \ Perhaps you prefer her as a bride, 
my friend. Ah, ha ! ” 

The collector threw over the lay figure a 
costume of white silk, with open sleeves reach- 
ing to the ground, and breast decked with lace 
and jewels. 

Gerard again made a negative movement. 

Rose-colored velvet wrought with pearls, 
and a double robe of crimson stuff with collar 
and sleeves of woven golden thread, met with 
no better success. 

Falcioni waxed ironical, and a trifle puz- 
zled. 

44 This is the apparel of Venetian brides 
long dead, young gentleman,” he said, in volu- 
ble German. 44 I pray you to reconsider a 
too hasty judgment against the finery. Look ! 
Here is the costume of a youth of the noble 
company of the Calze , striped, and puffed with 
satin. You may wear it, and dance attend- 
ance on your innamorata .” 

Gerard did not smile, and remained silent. 
This taciturnity finished by irritating Daniele 
Falcioni. 44 The lad is a fool,” he said to him- 
self, with the biting wisdom of maturity. 


184 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

He approached Gerard, laid a hand on 
either shoulder, and shook him slightly. 

“ These dresses are not fine enough for the 
signor ina, eh ? ” 

“ Fine enough \ ” echoed Gerard in bewil- 
derment. “ Oh, they are marvellous, incredi- 
ble ! Where are now the looms that wove 
them, and the dyes that colored them ? For 
her? No, no ! Let me choose.” 

The unconscious audacity of the painter 
moved the antiquarian to a keen sense of 
humor and astonishment. He remained pas- 
sive, while Gerard sought and found what he 
required among the stuffs. 

“ Take them,” said Falcioni ; and Gerard 
departed joyfully, carrying the draperies in 
his arms. 

Left alone, Falcioni became thoughtful, 
even dissatisfied. He was assisting the for- 
eign artist, moved by a kindly impulse of 
interest, and also as a means of gaining a foot- 
ing in the house of the musician. Would this 
German youth thwart his purpose in any way ? 
No ! He did not fear him. 

“ I will give them three more months to 
yield up their rights, and not another day,” 


LOVE. 


185 


he muttered, as he once more carefully re- 
stored the robes to the presses. 

An hour later, Marina Bardi stood in the 
studio of Gerard Grootz as the model he 
craved; while Bianca and Gesualda hovered 
near, uttering exclamations of delight and 
surprise. 

Marina’s docility touched Gerard, while her 
beauty intoxicated him. She was there at 
his bidding, to obey his most exacting behest. 
She seemed to have yielded up her own will 
in subjection to him, after confiding the book 
to his keeping the other night. Her smile, 
sweet and tender, the velvet glance of her 
great eyes, the softness of her manner, depre- 
cating and grateful, all betrayed that sudden 
and bewildering abandonment of self to an- 
other, in the many subtile and indirect trifles 
of movement and glance, calculated to appeal 
to and inthral a man, heart and soul. Did 
Gerard comprehend this supple compliance? 
His pulses thrilled, his gaze devoured this 
subject ; a sentiment of elation, excitement, 
and inspiration, raised him above the level of 
former effort. With Marina Bardi posing for 
him, achievement should be great. Thus he 


186 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


spread his waxen wings, and prepared to soar 
towards the sun. 

This transformed Marina, attentive and en- 
couraging to every phase of the artist’s jtask, 
with lips slightly parted, and a gaze far away, 
full of unspoken reveries, wore an Eastern 
tunic embroidered with large flowers, and the 
heads of angels, wrought in silks. Her man- 
tle of blue and gold was ornamented with a 
design of peacocks’ feathers, and iridescent 
shades of sapphire, ruby, and emerald. On 
her head was a Byzantine cap, sparkling 
with precious stones, from whence depended 
a veil of Moorish gauze. In her hand she 
carried the lily. 

The dress lent richness to the charms of the 
wearer, and the wearer gave dignity in every 
curve of her graceful shoulder and arm to the 
faded stuffs. 

Bianca and Gesualda marvelled at the work, 
and the strange hues blended in the fabric. 
Only the brain of the painter grasped such 
result as this central figure dominating Nu- 
bian slaves, with mosaics on the dull gold of 
the background, the walls draped with Chi- 
nese tissues, the door of cedar wood embossed 


LOVE . 


187 


with silver, and the table holding a lamp of 
three branches. 

The moments lengthened to hours as 
Gerard worked, and Marina did not flinch 
from the fatigue of her posture. Surely time 
was marked by something more than the 
throbbing seconds, each so full of mean- 
ing, of joy, pain, and trouble, in the great 
sala of the musician. The golden sands of 
life were ebbing fast, fast, in the invisible 
glass. 

Gesualda shredded beans in a copper vessel 
held on her knee, actuated by housewifely 
zeal, and glanced with mingled interest and 
amusement at the canvas. A gala toilet for 
the opera or a regatta would have been more 
to Gesualda’s taste, such as the pretty mother 
once wore, than these heavy garments, with 
the addition of silk stockings, perfumed 
gloves, and bracelets. Marina knew no 
better than to don this rubbish. Marina had 
never shone at the opera. 

“ Poveretta ! ” sighed the nurse regretfully, 
and snapped a bean into the basin with philo- 
sophical resignation. 

Bianca held her pigeon, now on her 


188 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


shoulder, and again on her plump wrist. 
The girl was watchful, radiant, and a trifle 
wistful in the contemplation of jewelled attire, 
which seemed to create a gulf between her 
sister and herself. 

At length the artist pushed aside the easel 
with a gesture betraying anger and disap- 
pointment, leaned his elbows on his knees, 
and his head on his hands. 

“ I can do no more,” he groaned. 

“ Is he ill ? ” whispered Bianca. 

Marina detached the heavy drapery from 
her shoulders, which served as an imperial 
mantle, approached the canvas, and covered 
it with a cloth, carefully. 

“ Courage, my friend,” she said calmly. 
“ It will look differently to-morrow. Now 
you must take the fresh air for an hour, and 
afterwards we will all sup together. Yes, 
even to Marco,” and she tapped the pigeon on 
the head, playfully. 

Gerard obeyed her wearily. He passed 
Daniele Falcioni in another gondola on the 
Grand Canal without perceiving or return- 
ing his jesting greeting. 

Beturning to his own abode, he slowly 


LOVE. 


189 


climbed the stairway without remembering 
the invitation to sup with the Bardi family. 

Bianca emerged on the landing, and archly 
reminded him of the engagement. 

The young girl played the hostess at table 
with innate grace of amiability. Her ani- 
mation relieved the re-active mood of fa- 
tigue and defection now perceptible in both 
model and painter. She filled Gerard’s glass 
with wine, and fed the pigeon with a mor- 
sel of bread held between her own white 
teeth. 

The simple meal concluded, Bianca brought 
Marina’s guitar, and thrust the instrument 
into the latter’s hand. 

“ Sing ! ” exclaimed the younger sister. 

Marina blushed deeply, shrank, and 
trembled at this unusual request; then her 
fingers swept over the strings, half uncon- 
sciously. 

“ Do you wish me to sin gV’ she demanded, 
turning to Gerard with a newly found sub- 
missiveness. 

“ Yes,” replied the artist absently. 

Singing should be as natural to her as to 
the nightingale in the thickets of Tuscan 


190 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

gardens, he thought, in his ignorance of the 
sacrifice such effort must cost her. 

The voice of Marina once more echoed 
through the long-silent rooms, pathetic, 
tremulous, and passionate, by turns. 

“ Sospira, cuore, che ragion tu hai, 

Aver l’amante e no vederlo mai ! 

El sospirar vien dal ben volere : 

Desiderar e no poder avere. ,, 

There was in Marina’s singing all the 
dreamy abstraction in ideal reveries, the 
merging of the intelligence in complete 
abandonment to inert idleness, and the fan- 
tastic caprice of snapping a string of the 
guitar, and ceasing abruptly, of the Venetian 
woman. 

“ She used to sing like that when the 
captain listened under the balcony,” Bianca 
whispered to Gerard. 

She gave him a liquid glance beneath her 
long eyelashes. If he were lingering in the 
carnpo , cavalier fashion, in the moonlight, 
Bianca would also tune a guitar on the 
balcony. 

Marina had risen, and put aside the in- 


LOVE. 


191 


strument, as if overwhelmed by powerful 
emotion. 

At this moment, Gesualda having cleared 
away the supper, and adjusted the lamp on 
the table in the act of trimming the wick, 
upset and extinguished it. 

Sudden darkness fell on the chamber. 

Then Gerard felt a gentle arm encircle his 
neck, and a pair of lips, warm and soft, 
pressed to his own. In the caress his whole 
nature was awakened, and his soul drawn to 
that other soul mingled in the ecstasy, swift 
and evanescent, of union. * 

A ray of light from the rekindled lamp 
penetrated the shadows. Marina Bardi stood 
at the casement, groping to open the sash. 
Bianca still sat beside Gerard, and turned to 
him with a smile of infantile sweetness. 

u The room is too warm,” murmured 
Marina, in stifled accents, and flung open the 
window, leaning out to inhale the freshness of 
evening. 

The draught made Gesualda’s flame waver, 
and flicker out once more. 

Gerard, who had never before tasted the 
luxury of a woman’s caress, turned to Bianca, 


r 

192 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

clasped her in his embrace, kissed her cheek 
and hair, and, seeking her trembling mouth 
with his own, responded to her first greeting 
with a lingering pressure. 

“ Say that you love me as I love you,” he 
breathed low. 

“ Ah, I love you,” responded Bianca, and 
her head sank on his shoulder. 

Vigilant Gesualda struck another match, 
with angry haste ; but Love had been before 
her. Love had entered the dark mansion, on 
rainbow-tinted wings, speaking for the first 
time, in the heart of youth, a sweet and rap- 
turous language. Too late Gesualda returned 
with her lamp freshly trimmed ! The nurse 
cast a sharp glance at the couple seated near 
the table, while Marina remained at the case- 
ment, as if questioning the stars concerning 
the problems of destiny. 

Next day the same ordeal of posing as 
model for the artist was repeated. 

Marina arrayed herself in the tunic and 
peacock-wrought mantle. Bianca looked at 
Gerard slyly and coquettishly, while playing 
with the pigeon. Gesualda again shredded 
dried vegetables into the copper basin. 


LOVE. 


193 


At the expiration of two hours the door 
opened, and Daniele Falcioni entered the 
studio unannounced. 

“ Good-day,” he said curtly, to the inmates 
of the room. 

He paused beside the easel, and inspected 
the study, with his hands thrust into the 
pockets of his rough coat. 

The three women vied with each other in 
courteous demonstrations of welcome to their 
dreaded creditor. Gesualda, with a brusque 
good-humor no less deceptive than the suave 
salutation of Marina, proffered a seat ; Bianca 
advanced to tender the chair she occupied. 

One does not frown openly in the face of an 
enemy, in the lands of the sun. 

As for Gerard, he blushed like a novice when 
Daniele Falcioni peered over his shoulder at 
his work. 

The visitor shrugged his shoulders. 

“ Take care that the left arm is not out of 
drawing,” he admonished. 

He looked about him, and crossed the studio 
to the threshold of the chamber where the 
musical instruments were kept. His step 
was deliberate, and his manner assured, as 


194 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

of a man entering into possession of his 
own. 

Marina darted a startled and wrathful glance 
after him ; Gesualda scowled. 

“ What will you do with these things \ ” he 
demanded in a peremptory tone. “ I will take 
the violin in the case, as a pledge.” 

A pallor of helpless rage overspread the 
features of the eldest daughter of the dead 
musician, at this unexpected announcement, 
and her nostril quivered. 

“We have not thought of parting with the 
Stradivarius, signore ,” she said, with unruffled 
affability. “ Should we be forced to do so, the 
preference will be your own. Rest tranquil in 
the assurance of our word.” 

iC I wish it now,” insisted Falcioni harshly. 

He was tightening the meshes of his web. 
He desired to make his power felt. 

The three women regarded each other with 
consternation. 

Gerard came to their rescue. He had 
pushed back the easel with the same capricious 
dissatisfaction which had oppressed him on 
the previous day. 

“ I should like to paint the violin before you 


LOVE. 


195 


take it away — and the musician perhaps,” he 
objected. 

The sisters divined in this suggestion a 
timely prevarication of delay, and looked at 
their young champion with profound grati- 
tude. 

Daniele Falcioni discerned something more 
in the proposition. His face brightened with 
satisfaction: 

“ Good ! I should prefer that sketch to 
your Byzantine empress. Are you familiar 
with the features of Leonardo Bardi ? There 
are prints of him attached to many sheets of 
music, and a miniature or two, doubtless, in 
the family.” 

Gerard paced the length of the sola several 
times as if lost in thought, then paused near 
the window with his abstracted gaze fixed on 
the opposite wall. 

The brightness of the day had suffered a 
swift change. The sun was now obscured by 
sweeping masses of cloud, and a cold gloom 
pervaded the apartment. The wind, fitful 
and violent, rattled the glass of the casements, 
as if presaging storms. 

The pigeon flew from the shoulder of Bianca, 


196 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

and perched on the carved frame above the 
dim picture of St. Jerome. 

“ I have seen him,” said Gerard Grootz, in 
a muffled voice. 

“Jesu Maria!” exclaimed Gesualda, and 
crossed herself rapidly. 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


197 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 

One day in the ensuing month of March, 
Gerard was alone in his studio, putting the 
finishing touches to the picture ordered by 
Daniele Falcioni. This study represented a 
man standing in an open window, and playing 
on a violin. The adjustment of a heavy cur- 
tain revealed the shadow of the musician on 
the wall. 

Slow in the composition of other sketches, 
dilatory, irresolute, eager to try a new subject, 
and reluctant to attain completion, the young 
artist had found courage and strength in this 
work. 

He could have earlier finished the portrait, 
had not the sisters united in thwarting a ful- 
filment which might mean such capitulation 
as giving up the Stradivarius of their father. 
Rendered singularly deficient in all practical 
worldly wisdom by their education, the instru- 


198 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


ment acquired new value in their estimation 
when claimed by Daniele Falcioni. It should 
find a place of honor in some museum. Fail- 
ing that, it would be better to send it to the 
Monte di Pieta than to have it fall into the 
clutches of the usurer. 

When Falcioni departed that day, Marina 
Bardi had taken Gerard’s head between her 
hands, and kissed his brow; while Gesualda 
bestowed a resounding rustic smack on each 
cheek, in token of her aproval. 

Bianca had clung to his arm, exclaiming, 
“Ah! I told you he was the San Giorgio of 
the altar picture, and Daniele Falcione is the 
dragon.” 

The young man, bewildered, charmed, and 
flattered by the praises lavished upon him, 
could only promise to dally with the task. 

The Bardi family had no other plans. Pay- 
ment to the money-lender must be made 
some time, and they deferred the evil hour, — 
that was all. Winter had brought cloud, ice, 
and occasional snow. Such mats and strips 
of carpet as this destitute interior could boast 
were in active requisition. The sisters carried 
a scaldino hung on the arm by the handle, and 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


199 


warmed chilled finger-tips at the coals from 
time to time. 

Elsewhere in the town the cold was bitter, 
spirits depressed, and limbs benumbed : in the 
house of the musician, new and sweet influ- 
ences were charged with electric flash of song, 
mirth, re very, and hidden meaning. 

The young girl Bianca was the source of 
this change, the spring of all action. Since 
Gerard had avowed his love for her, the char- 
acter of the childish creature had developed 
manifold fine instincts, alike tantalizing and 
delicious to a lover. 

The first impulse of the artist would have 
been to join hands, lead the maiden to her 
sister, and announce, — 

“We love each other. When I have 
worked well, and secured a position, we hope 
to marry.” 

Bianca forbade such measures with bewitch- 
ing tyranny. To confess their love would 
spoil all. Bianca feared the displeasure of 
her sister. She was confident of Marina’s 
disapproval. 

Gesualda might be told the mighty secret, 
with arms clasped about her neck, and ready 


200 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


kisses wherewith to silence all objections and 
grumblings. 

Waiting, with a finger on an arch rosy lip, 
meant the training of the pigeon to fly from 
the court to Gerard’s balcony with a note 
folded under the wing every morning, chance 
meetings in the corridor, stolen caresses, an 
occasional evening at the theatre, and the 
seemingly artless device of placing Marina 
first in every thing. 

No marvel that roseate day-dreams steeped 
the senses of the artist, clouded his brain, 
and unnerved his hand for steady labor. 

To dazzle and surprise, then flit away 
laughing, had become Bianca’s mission, the 
unfolding of the rich blossom of her woman- 
hood. Gerard was taught that the hue of a 
ribbon, and its adjustment, possessed all the 
complicated meanings of a system of signalling 
in the arts of coquetry. The blue fichu tied 
closely around the throat signified that Marina 
was in a suspicious and bad humor, and that 
the lovers must be discreet. The knot of 
crimson bows on the shoulder hinted that 
they might all go to the booth of the marion- 
nettes in the evening, or make a turn of the 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


201 


piazza, if Gerard would propose such a holi- 
day. 

At times, the youth asked himself with im- 
patience, to what end all these subterfuges 
tended; and, when he attempted to reason 
with Bianca on the subject, her airy frivolity 
eluded his Northern gravity. She gave him a 
flower, made him repeat a verse of liquid mel- 
ody from a page of Tasso, and exacted a vow 
never to disclose their mutual attachment 
until she granted him leave. 

On more than one occasion, disclosure trem- 
bled on his lips, when a glance of earnest 
entreaty, a tragic gesture behind the back of 
the unconscious Marina, checked the con- 
fession. 

Gesualda only lent herself to the situation 
after many remonstrances, and with innumer- 
able objections. Gerard was only a poor 
painter, and had best think solely of his work. 
Bianck was a penniless girl, whose beauty 
would prove a snare were not her faithful old 
Gesualda there to warn of evil. Gradually 
the nurse lent ear to Bianca’s castle-building ; 
and the adroitness of her nursling in skilfully 
turning the most trifling and commonplace 


202 TIIE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


incident to her own advantage, inspired in the 
breast of the elder woman amazement and 
respect. Gesualda, if the truth be told, also 
shrank from Marina’s sombre verdict on love 
and happiness. Let events take their course. 
Soon the spring would come, and matters 
might arrange themselves. 

Marina Bardi, ignorant of the conspiracy 
developing about her, still wore that appear- 
ance of absorption and submission which had 
come over her on the night when Gerard 
had found her reading the diary of her father. 

She encouraged the young man in his art, 
and praised his efforts, gently chiding his petu- 
lance, and reasoning with him in moments of 
discouragement. She posed for him with un- 
ruffled patience, for hours, and even suggested 
new studies when his strength flagged. One 
would have inferred that she lived for the art 
of Gerard Grootz ; while he unconsciously 
taxed to the utmost this devotion. 

When the painter approached her to re- 
arrange the folds of drapery, emotion was 
perceptible on her usually calm face, tran- 
sient tenderness, sympathy, and a certain 
scorn. 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


203 


Bianca, seated on a pile of red cushions, 
would smile demurely at her own thoughts. 

Gesualda’s swarthy countenance darkened 
with anxiety at such moments. 

Daniele Falcioni came often, and paced the 
sola with quick and restless steps, glancing 
covetously at the precious violin in the case, 
to be assured of its safety, and noting the 
progress of the picture. 

“ Leave this house when the work is fin- 
ished,” he advised in his abrupt fashion. 

Gerard looked at his interlocutor eagerly. 

“ Yes,” he sighed. 

“You will never accomplish any thing here,” 
pursued Daniele Falcioni. “ Bah ! these wo- 
men feed you on cloying sweets too much.” 

Gerard had grown hollow-eyed and thin in 
the moral struggle between opposing influ- 
ences. If he was happy, he was also pro- 
foundly miserable. Marina had become the 
conscience urging him to the task he was in- 
capable of fulfilling to his own satisfaction. 
Bianca exulted in her power to thwart prog- 
ress, to arrest the uplifted brush or pencil 
by the interposition of her pretty blond head 
and charming smile. At the same time the 


204 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

direct influence of the younger sister was the 
sunny surface ripple ; and the elder, unfathom- 
able and shadowy depths. Good and evil, 
love in a twofold development, swayed the 
youth from a passion of aspiration to ideal 
attainment, to dalliance over a note folded be- 
neath the wing of the pet pigeon Marco, and 
fastened by a silken thread. 

Happy hours, full of youthful hope, in the 
house of the musician, despite the frequent 
storm and biting cold without! Would not 
the light and shadow of these moments haunt 
Gerard Grootz, fully comprehended only in 
retrospection, valued only in loss, to the grave? 

44 Thou fill’ st from the winged chalice of the soul 
Thy lamp, O Memory, fire-winged to its goal. ,, 

Checked in the immediate completion of 
the order given by Falcioni, by the incessant 
and united entreaties of the Bardi household, 
Gerard acquired the habit of absenting him- 
self from the studio, and spending whole days 
in the galleries and churches. Here he wor- 
shipped at the shrine of the great master 
who had drawn him hither, striving to grasp 
some element of the bold and hardy strokes 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


205 


so effective at a distance, the round and ample 
contours as of living flesh, the mellow tones 
of coloring, the powerful chiaroscuro. 

Now the day had come when an irascible 
comment of Daniele Falcioni’s had spurred the 
artist to finish the picture. 

On this Saturday morning the weather had 
changed. Winter was over. The warm cur- 
rent of air which blew into the open casement 
promised the speedy advent of the scirrocco 
wind, and drops of moisture gathered on the 
walls. 

The door opened, and Marina Bardi entered. 

She was pale, and her lips trembled. She 
fixed on Gerard a burning, intense glance. 

He returned her greeting with a smile. 

“You have come to give me another sit- 
ting?” he demanded, touching the violin in 
the picture, with a fine brush, as a final stroke 
of completion. 

“No, not to-day,” she replied slowly. 

Bianca put her head in the door. 

“ Have you my pigeon hidden away here, 
Signore Pittore?” she inquired gayly. 

“ No,” said Gerard, in the same light tone. 

Bianca wore the blue fichu around her 


206 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


throat, and indicated in addition, by a slight 
and expressive grimace, that the mood of her 
sister was a bad one. 

Marina made an affectionate gesture to the 
young girl, with an expression of benevolence. 
Her eye caught at the half-completed sketches 
of herself hung on the walls. 

“You like my coloring, signore ? ” she ques- 
tioned. 

Gerard did not look at her. He stepped 
back a pace, and contemplated the canvas on 
the easel, instead. 

“ Yes, I like your coloring,” he rejoined. 

Marina’s haughty features clouded to in- 
tense bitterness, but the next moment the 
look passed. 

She went into the chamber on the left, and 
emerged carrying the glass case containing the 
violin unde;' her arm, as if it had been an 
infant. Her breathing was a trifle hurried, 
and a vein in her throat swelled to rigid prom- 
inence. 

“ What art thou doing with our father’s 
violin, dearest ? Give it to Daniele Falcioni ? ” 
asked Bianca, puzzled, and a little overawed 
by Marina’s gravity of demeanor. 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


207 


The latter burst into a peal of shrill laugh- 
ter, but speedily recovered her composure as 
if by an effort of will. 

“ Yes, I am going to give the Stradivarius 
to Daniele Falcioni,” she assented, after a 
pause. “ The picture is finished. What else 
can we do \ Come away, little one, and leave 
the artist in peace.” 

She departed swiftly, and without bestowing 
another glance on Gerard. 

Bianca made a little gesture of farewell, and 
also disappeared. 

Left alone once more, Gerard took up the 
various studies of Marina, troubled by her 
words solely as they referred to himself. What 
had he succeeded in obtaining l A feeble re- 
flection of her beauty, as an image may be 
projected on troubled waters. She had not 
lingered in the studio to-day to aid him, but 
had bidden her sister come away, and leave 
him in peace. Herein lay the sharpest sting 
of failure possible to inflict on his egotism. 
Such was her unspoken verdict on his work. 
She had demanded to know if he liked 
her coloring. She was mocking at him, 
then 1 


208 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

He paced the floor with a feverish restless- 
ness, tormented by these painful reflections ; 
his temples throbbed ; strange thrills of heat 
and cold shook his frame. The scirrocco was 
beginning to beat in his veins. 

He threw himself down on the pile of cush- 
ions where Bianca was fond of nestling like 
a young cat, and covered his eyes with his 
hands. He remained there for a long time, 
inert, stupefied, almost devoid of power of 
thought. He never knew how long a time 
he lingered thus. 

He was aroused by a soft whirr and flash 
of white wings. The pigeon had reached the 
balcony once more, and then made a circling 
flight through the sala , finally alighting on 
the carved frame of the picture of St. Jerome 
opposite the artist. To the sick and morbid 
fancy of the young man, the bird more than 
usual symbolized the Holy Spirit. 

The next moment Gerard smiled languidly. 
He could discern the silken thread around the 
neck, which denoted a missive brought by this 
graceful postman. He rose and approached, 
holding out his hand for the pigeon to descend ; 
but Marco, ignoring these overtures, remained 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


209 


aloof, inspired by a mood of caprice not unlike 
the whims of his fair mistress. 

The pigeon was not hungry. On the appe- 
tite of a bird hinged the events of that day in 
the house of the musician. 

“ Very good, pretty pet ! I will have my 
letters delivered more promptly, be it under- 
stood,” said Gerard aloud, and climbed on a 
stool, stretching up his arm with coaxing calls. 

In vain ! The pigeon cocked his head, 
looked down with one bright eye, and did not 
move. • Gerard descended, glanced about him 
somewhat helplessly, and, going to a remote 
corner, replenished the little cup with fresh 
water, and scattered pease in a saucer. This 
tempting display of food had been the means 
of instructing the pigeon to fly from Bianca’s 
window to the balcony of the artist. 

Marco remained obdurate. Marco was not 
hungry. 

Gerard laughed, again approached, and 
lifted down the picture, with the bird still 
seated gravely on the frame. 

Scarcely had the picture descended to the 
floor, when Marco spread wing, and, circling 
below the ceiling, alighted on the large alle- 


210 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


gorical work of Italy in the back of the 
room. 

Gerard flushed with a sudden impulse of 
anger. 

“ Stay there, then, silly bird! ” he exclaimed. 
“ Thou shalt not escape me, however, for I will 
shut the window, and hold thee prisoner.” 

He closed the sash, and then began to ex- 
amine the old picture, in order to slight the 
pigeon, and assure the feathered postman of 
his entire indifference. His mood was one to 
catch at trifles. 

The picture was blackened with dust and 
damp, and the frame, quaintly and elaborately 
carved in a heavy border of arabesque design, 
not less dilapidated. 

Gerard wiped the surface with his sleeve, 
thus dislodging a cloud of dust, after which 
he applied some warm water and soap with 
a soft rag. The work was improved by the 
bath. San Girolamo appeared as the central 
figure, surrounded by several saints, as in the 
altar-picture of Squarcione’s at Padua. The 
execution was indifferent, betraying a pupil’s 
hand, and the coloring heavy. 

Gerard smeared a little oil on the dull robe 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


211 


of the saint in the foreground, and sought in 
a box for a bottle containing a chemical prepa- 
ration much commended to him by a profes- 
sional cleaner of pictures, whom he had met 
several times at the Accademia. 

Either the proportions of the magical liquid 
were wrong, or the enthusiast had given Ge- 
rard another compound; for the latter had no 
sooner applied it to the canvas, than the folds 
of the red drapery began to scale off in large 
flakes. 

The artist uttered an exclamation of surprise. 

Beneath the daub of St. Jerome was con- 
cealed another picture. Intense interest in 
the discovery of a pictorial palimpsest found an 
additional stimulus in discerning the fingers of 
a hand, holding the great amber beads of a 
rosary. 

Where had he before seen that hand, and 
those amber beads? 

A cry of wonder, delight, and incredulity 
escaped his lips. 

He forgot the house of the musician, the 
sisters Bardi, the pigeon perched coquettishly 
out of reach with a love-letter still folded 
under one wing. 


212 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Calculating the distance from the hand, 
with a rapid glance, he attacked the canvas 
with a reckless haste which might have 
proved fatal to careful restoration, and, by a 
fortunate chance, beheld an opaque mass melt 
slowly away, revealing a familiar head. 

Mistake was no longer possible ; doubt 
faded: the Venetian portrait was before Gerard 
Grootz, had been with him all this time, con- 
cealed beneath the grime and blackness of St. 
Jerome and his lugubrious attendants. How? 
Why? Was this the original work, and the 
treasure of the Van Limburg gallery a clever 
copy, a fraud ? 

Heart and brain asked these questions, as 
the youth hung upon the self-imposed task 
with ardent zeal and devouring curiosity. 

At length he paused ; sudden fear of mar- 
ring the precious work, so long preserved by 
the outer coating of paint, staying his hand in 
the use of palette-knife, rag, and fluid. 

He had seen enough. The outline of the 
noble form was there, beheld through a veil 
of clogging patches and blemishes ; and the 
haughty glance was turned upon him, so full 
of pride, yet vital with intelligence and power, 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


213 


which had thrilled him as a boy with profound 
emotion. 

A true vertigo of enthusiasm overwhelmed 
Gerard. He laughed until the tears came to 
his eyes, ran to the door to call the Bardi 
household, altered his mind, and halted on the 
threshold. 

Returning to the picture, he seized it, and 
ruthlessly knocked off the frame. He wished 
to hang the portrait on the wall, as he had 
first beheld the other. The rusted hook had 
broken when he had taken down St. Jerome. 
He went to the back of the sala , and dis- 
mounted the Italy so rudely that the pigeon 
once more took flight. The hooks supporting 
this work of art also broke in the precipitate 
descent. 

Again the countenance of Gerard flushed 
with vexation at a trifling annoyance. The 
portrait should be hung there, in a good light, 
where he could gaze at it in a leisurely man- 
ner, and assure himself the whole discovery 
was not a dream. 

The need of movement had much to do with 
his excitement. He took up his hat, and 
rushed out of the house. 


214 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


At the expiration of half an hour, he came 
back furnished with a hammer and some wire 
and strong nails. 

Exulting in his own energy, he climbed on 
the stool, and drove a nail into the wall, in a 
space between the supports of the Italy which 
had hung there so long, and lower down in 
the surface. 

At the second blow of the hammer the nail 
disappeared in the wall. 

Gerard stared first at the dark wainscot, 
and then at the hammer, puzzled by the 
accident. 

To select another nail from the store, and 
repeat the attempt still more vigorously, was 
the natural sequence. 

The nail vanished as mysteriously as its* 
predecessor, taking with it the head of the 
hammer. 

Gerard drew a long breath. Astonishment 
held him motionless for a moment. 

That portion of the wall, where the nails 
and hammer had entered with a startling 
rapidity, was a thin partition, concealing some 
recess in the apparently solid masonry. 

All the histories he had ever read in the 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


215 


paragraphs of journals, or heard recounted 
among his fellow-students of the art-school, 
thronged his mind. The mediaeval castle 
with secret chambers, the ancient chdteau 
with hiding-places for fugitive princes behind 
the chimney, and the town mansion where the 
print of the mason’s hand might still be dis- 
cerned on the plaster of the cellar wall where 
the family plate and jewels had been de- 
posited before the Revolution, were not un- 
known even to this dreamer of the studio. 
Such straws on the tide of marvellous recital, 
such waifs of the daily press, recurred to his 
mind as he paused there, amazed at his dis- 
covery. 

He again took up his hat, and locked the 
door after him, — a precaution taken mechani- 
cally, — and descended the stairway. 

He paused irresolutely on the lower land- 
ing. Should he tell the Bardi family ? Should 
he summon Gesualda, with her shrewd wit, to 
his aid \ What was there to impart, after all ? 
Had he seen Bianca at the window, he would 
have spoken; but the apartment was silent, 
and apparently deserted. 

The young man hastened through the court, 


216 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


and sought a charcoal and wood merchant near 
by, where he borrowed a heavy axe for an 
hour, slipping a franc into the grimy palm of 
the good-humored dealer, by way of compen- 
sation. 

The quarter was unusually deserted, for it 
was the hour of the drawing of the lottery in 
the piazza. 

Gerard went and returned without observa- 
tion. He noticed that the scirrocco was in- 
creasing in violence, and the waters of the 
canal commenced to overflow the quays. 

The task he had set himself, of exploring 
the recess, was no very difficult one. Selecting 
the spot where the hammer-head had disap- 
peared, several blows of the axe made the 
partition crumble sufficiently for the insertion 
of the blade, when twenty minutes of further 
effort caused the whole to yield, and a black 
space opened before him. 

He shrank back in some apprehension. 
What mystery had lain concealed yonder for 
years? Was it the door of some secret stair- 
way? Would the ghostly shape of skeleton 
in armor, or unfaithful wife, thus willed up, 
confront him? 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


217 


Gerard lighted the brass candelabra, and 
advanced it into the aperture, half anticipating 
a dull explosion of confined air. 

All was silent and obscure. Gaining cour- 
age, he entered the place, and looked about 
him. The recess had evidently been made 
for the purpose now fulfilled, and the work 
of the partition was much fresher than that of 
the adjacent wall. A chest, bound with iron 
clamps, occupied the place. Gerard tried the 
lid, and found it fastened. What impulse led 
him to scrutinize the lock ? Why should he 
remember that he had removed the key from 
the other chest in the room of the musical in- 
struments, after restoring the book taken from 
Marina Bardi? The key had fitted loosely in 
the lock, as if the chest had been already 
tampered with, or the wards were too large. 

Gerard left the candelabra lighted on the’ 
floor of the recess, hastened to his own cham- 
ber, found the kev, and returned with it in his 
hand. 

A knock on the studio-door startled him. 
He paused, and glanced towards the portal with 
a confused sense of being tracked and dis- 
covered in some misdeed. He had forgotten 


218 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 


that he had slid the bolt on entering, but now 
he rejoiced in the precaution. 

Daniele Falcioni tried the door, shook it, 
and called several times with marked impa- 
tience of tone. 

Gerard stood motionless, as if paralyzed, 
holding the key in rigid fingers. Daniele 
Falcioni, the enemy of the household, had no 
right to be there at such a juncture. Ah, if 
he could enter now, and peer about with his 
sharp eyes ! But he should not enter. 

The usurer again knocked, and then slowly 
departed, his footsteps echoing heavily on the 
stair. 

Gerard flew to the recess, knelt, fitted the 
key in the lock, and was scarcely surprised to 
have it yield. He raised the lid, and peeped 
into the case. 

The first impression made on his senses was 
that the scrigno was full of folds of lace ; the 
second, that two heaps of golden pieces of 
money, and gems, were equally divided in the 
bottom of the receptacle. 

He took up a folded book of leather, and 
read an enclosed slip of paper, which was 
faded, yellow, yet still decipherable : — 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL . 


219 


“ Wedding dowries of my daughters Marina 
and Bianca , which I vow never to touch ; and may 
death sooner take me than that I prove false to 
my word." 

Beside the pocket-book was a volume of 
patterns, which he opened, and discovered 
that it was the work of Nicolo d’Aristotite, 
detto Zoppino, 1537. 

Then he turned with a reverent touch the 
twin piles of creamy lace, vaguely aware of 
the value of the hoard stored away in the 
alcove, — merletti in leaves, points ; many an 
airy fabric of grouped design, wrought by 
Venetian women in their homes, on cushions, 
for the coronation of kings in distant lands ; 
wrought by nuns in the cloister, with patient 
skill, for altars and ecclesiastical garments ; and 
not to be confounded with the industry of the 
lagoons. 

Suddenly Gerard drew back, flushing with 
shame. These fairy textures and shimmer- 
ing jewels did not belong to him. He closed 
the lid of the coffer, and emerged into the 
room. 

The pigeon, utterly forgotten in these novel 
pre-occupations of the artist, had sipped water 


220 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


from the little cup, pecked the grain in the 
saucer, and finally perched on the portrait, as 
it rested against the wainscot awaiting the 
driving-in of a new nail. Weary of inaction, 
Marco ruffled his shining plumage, and pecked 
at the silken thread about his neck. As Ge- 
rard approached, the detached slip of paper 
fluttered from beneath the bird’s wing down 
on the floor. “It is true, I had forgotten 
thee, Marco,” said the young man aloud. 

He picked up the paper. Delay had ren- 
dered the note superfluous, for he was going 
now to notify the family of his extraordinary 
discovery. He opened the paper as he moved 
towards the door, and with his hand on the 
bolt read, — 

“ Marina is strange to-claj^. I believe she is mad. 
She is taking me away. Oh, follow us quickly, I pray 
you! Bianca/ * 

For an instant Gerard stood as if crushed 
by a blow, then he sprang down the stair. 

The door of the Bardi apartment was closed. 

Gesualda and the dwarf Pippo entered the 
court below, talking together with a certain 
animation and perceptible ruefulness. The 


THE NAIL IN THE WALL. 


221 


numbers of the lottery had drawn, and they 
had lost. 

“ I wish to see the ladies,” said Gerard, re- 
assured by their appearance. 

46 Eh ! Come in, then,” retorted Gesualda. 

But Gerard did not enter. 

“ The ladies have not been with you in the 
piazza, then ] ” he persisted. 

“ Madonna ! No ! They are both at home, 
where I left them,” said Gesualda, using the 
key she always carried in her pocket to open 
the door. 

Pippo eyed the artist in silence. 

Soon Gesualda returned with a puzzled ex- 
pression, although no concern was perceptible 
in her bearing. She turned over a letter in 
her hand. 

“ They have gone out,” she announced, 
speaking more slowly. “ I found this enve- 
lope on the table.” 

The missive was addressed to Gerard, in 
the handwriting of Marina. 

The young man snatched the envelope from 
the fingers of the wondering nurse, opened 
and strove to read the enclosed sheet, but the 
characters swam before his eyes. 


222 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Pippo the dwarf sidled nearer, and pulled 
Gerard’s sleeve, whispering hoarsely, — 

“ Where have they gone, signore ? ” 

The scirrocco wind, sweeping in from the 
misty stretch of sea and the fretted lagoons, 
moaned about the house of the musician for 
all answer. 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


223 


CHAPTER IX. 

ADRIATIC WAVES. 

That morning, the dwarf Pippo had been 
abroad with the dawn, not so much from 
urgent necessity of labor, as because he could 
not sleep. 

He had taken the birds under his coat, and 
crept through many a by-way to the piazza, 
attracted by the fascination of rehearsing the 
familiar scene of the drawing of the lottery, 
which would transpire later. 

The gambling instinct of thus taking his 
chances of rising to sudden and giddy opu- 
lence, by a turn of fortune’s wheel, had been 
imbibed with his mother’s milk. 

“He is a fool who plays too much, or not 
at all,” says the Venetian proverb. 

Pippo and Gesualda were allies in the evil 
times that had befallen the musician’s family ; 
nor had repeated failures diminished the ardor 
of their calculations founded on the decease of 


224 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Leonardo Bardi, with the attendant circum- 
stances. 

The previous week, Gesualda had succeeded 
in dreaming of a cardinal, a cat, and a cucum- 
ber, all on the same night, — a most favorable 
augury ; and had combined with Pippo in 
buying a terno. 

“ This time we shall win, my little mani- 
kin,” she had proclaimed. 

Imbued with her enthusiasm, the dwarf had 
issued forth at daybreak to view the spot. 

Gradually the pale light of day increased 
over the wide space of piazza ; but no rosy 
clouds flecked the sky, no pearly mists veiled 
the lagoons and distant mountain-peaks ready 
to melt in the first rays of the rising sun. The 
clouds were sombre and tawny, and the wind 
blew in fitful gusts. Every blemish and stain 
of decay in the city became visible, columns 
and arcades garish, ornaments tawdry, without 
mellowing shadow. The scirrocco demeaned 
beauty by an impure breath, sullying marble, 
arousing stagnant odors, smearing frescos and 
gilding. 

The Church of St. Mark alone withstood 
this debasing influence, and the mosaics glowed 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


225 


like jewels in the moist atmosphere. The 
horses of Lysippus seemed to gaze down on 
little Pippo and the cage of birds, as they had 
viewed humanity thus dwarfed for centuries, 
whether from the Roman arches of Trajan, 
Nero, and Domitian, or the Hippodrome of 
Constantinople, spurning portico and roof. 

Pippo did not gaze back at the bronze 
steeds. He looked instead at the gates that 
would close later, and the orphan boy draw 
forth the lucky numbers of the lottery from 
the receptacle. 

“ Who knows \ If we win the terno , I will 
take a quartiere on the Canale Grande, and 
live like a noble,” mused the dwarf, caressing 
his favorite parrakeet Giovanni. “ Thou need 
sell no more leaves of fortune to gain our 
bread, my pet, but live in a large cage all 
gilded.” 

Never had Giovanni appeared more lively 
and intelligent. The bird sidled along Pippo’s 
finger, and then, hopping to the brink of the 
box, evinced a desire to draw forth a card 
which should forecast the horoscope of these 
partners in business. 

Pippo laughed, restored the parrakeets to 


226 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

their tiny house, and took his way back once 
more to his own quarter. 

Several hours later, he crossed the court of 
the Gothic palace, and climbed the outer stair- 
way. His movements were so quiet that he 
approached Gerard and Bianca on the land- 
ing, without being perceived by them. The 
lovers had paused for a whispered colloquy, a 
fleeting caress, and stood for a moment with 
hands clasped, searching each other’s eyes for 
charming, half-fathomed secrets. 

“ Oh, ho ! ” quoth Pippo, and his black eyes 
twinkled with glee. 

The interview was manifestly clandestine. 
Then Marina Bardi did not know of the true 
situation ? 

The lovers separated ; Gerard ascending to 
the studio, while Bianca paused below, press- 
ing a little note to her lips, drawn from her 
bosom. 

Unconscious of the sharp eyes watching her, 
the young girl restored the note to the folds 
of her dress, and glided in the door. 

The slip of paper had fallen to the ground, 
and Pippo lost no time in securing and read- 
ing it eagerly. Pippo delighted in prying into 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


227 


the secrets of other people; and, for the mo- 
ment, his satisfaction had no wider range of 
purpose. He possessed the lively curiosity 
of a monkey, and the pertinacity of a rodent 
in worming his way through all difficulties to 
attain 'an end, especially if the matter did not 
concern him. 

He waited for a suitable length of time, 
then requested to see Marina Bardi. 

The latter was seated in the same place 
where she had first sung to Gerard on the 
night when young Love entered the dark 
apartment. She was listlessly tuning her 
guitar, and responded with indifference to the 
greeting of this frequent visitor. 

“ Try your chance with fortune, signorina” 
coaxed Pippo, approaching with his cage. 

Giovanni, the parrakeet, stepped forth 
gravely, and drew a little card from the box ; 
but whether the bird was less adroit than 
usual, or Marina received it carelessly, the 
message of fortune slipped from her lap to 
the edge of her robe. 

Pippo stooped to recover his' wares, and 
dropped the slip of paper which he had thrust 
up his sleeve. 


228 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Marina placed her foot on it. The instinct 
of teasing the dwarf existed in the Bardi 
household, as well as in the campo. 

“ Why do you carry a paper up your sleeve, 
gobbo ? ” she demanded. 

“ Give it to me,” cried Pippo shrilly. 

He was a trifle frightened by the mishap, 
and he also intended to make some money 
out of restoring the note to Gerard. 

Oh! what would be the result if Marina 
Bardi read the paper ? 

Some quick perception of the truth flashed 
through Pippo’s brain, as he hung himself on 
the floor, and strove to wrest the treasure from 
his tormentor. 

Marina was surprised and amused by his 
trepidation. She caught up the paper, and, 
holding it high above his head, read the scrap 
aloud : — 

Dearest Bianca, — A thousand thanks for your 
last sweet message. Try to persuade the sister to give 
me a sitting to-day, in order that we may be together. 
I often ask n^self when this irksome secrecy will end. 

Gerard. 

A change, swift and terrible, transfigured 
the previous listlessness of Marina Bardi to 


ADRIATIC WAVES . 


229 


glowing wrath, as her gaze devoured these 
lines. 

Pippo sidled away to the door, and lingered 
on the threshold, like an imp of evil omen. 

“Eh! The signorina , would have it,” he 
said mockingly. “ I did not give her the 
note. They were on the landing just now. 
Per Bacco ! They are lovers, those two. All 
the quarter knows it.” 

Marina sprang towards the dwarf, and pur- 
sued him out on the landing. With the ra- 
pidity of lightning she wrested the cage of 
parrakeets from his grasp, and hurled it down 
the stairway. 

Then she returned indoors with the same 
celerity, and closed the portal behind her, 
leaving Pippo an aghast and stupefied specta- 
tor of his own work. 

“ If she had not seized them, she would 
have killed me,” reflected the manikin. 
“ Misericordia ! What a woman ! ” 

He crept down the stair, step by step, and 
approached the cage fearfully. The parra- 
keets were tumbled together in a little heap 
of green feathers, with Giovanni underneath 
his brothers. Alas ! Giovanni, most sagacious 


230 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


of little birds, most faithful servant of a street- 
vender of fortune-cards, was dead. How live- 
ly and intelligent he had been at the dawn, 
when he strove to draw a favorable augury for 
Pippo from the box which formed their joint 
stock in trade! If the parrakeet could but 
have foretold his own doom, he must have 
warned his master to avoid Marina Bardi in a 
black mood of ill-humor. 

The dwarf uttered a cry of rage and de- 
spair, and went forth to tell his woes to his 
world. The signorina had killed his bird, in a 
fit of anger. He refrained from stating more 
fully the cause of Marina’s displeasure. 

The neighbors listened sympathetically, and 
poked the tiny corpse as it lay in Pippo’s 
palm. Giovanni knew as much as a Chris- 
tian, all were agreed; and now he was dead. 
It is a pity to die when a bird knows as much 
as a Christian, just as a mortal should live 
forever when blessed with wealth. Madonna ! 
What a world it is ! 

Marina Bardi, in one flash of painful and 
intense conviction, realized the truth. 

The foreign artist, who had intruded on 
their lives so strangely and unexpectedly, 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


281 


loved her sister, and not herself. She had 
believed otherwise. She had been duped, 
blinded, befooled, by her own vanity. The 
exacting, domineering nature of the woman, 
requiring to come first in all things, could 
not tamely brook the insult. 

She did not love Gerard Grootz. Far from 
it. The blond stripling was only a feeble and 
colorless substitute of her lover, the glowing, 
ardent Sicilian officer, in the prime of man- 
hood. Marina had read devotion and homage 
to herself in the artist’s absorbed study of 
her features and form. A responsive chord 
of sympathy was awakened in her breast and 
imagination. Gerard Grootz would gain fame 
by painting her, even as the masters of old 
reproduced the women they loved, in every 
phase of study, from Madonna to goddess and 
nymph. She forgot herself in the contempla- 
tion of this new aim in life. Hence her soft 
grace of acquiescence to the exactions of 
the painter. Hence her reveries and castle- 
building, during the long hours of winter, 
with new found hope crowning the battle- 
ments. 

Now the dwarf, by a sting of covert ridi- 


232 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


cule, had awakened her to a realization of the 
situation. 

The soul of Marina Bardi was blighted by 
this second blow, as a leaf of paper blackens 
and shrivels in the devouring flame. She 
crouched in her chair for a space, in a mena- 
cing silence, her fiery and unfathomable eyes 
fixed on vacancy, the fury and wrong of the 
past confronted by the degradation of the 
present hour. ’ Words from her closed lips 
would have rushed to their goal like winged 
snakes, emanating from a spirit baleful and 
terrible. 

At length she rose, and opened the door of 
Bianca’s chamber. 

The girl was seated at a table, writing. 
Her cheeks were flushed with a rosy glow, 
and a happy light shone in her eyes, while a 
smile hovered about her lips. 

If a look could have blighted the living 
object on whom it rested, the vindictive 
scrutiny of Marina would have petrified the 
unconscious Bianca. 

“What are you doing, dear little one?” 
said the elder sister, in her habitual caressing 
tone. 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


283 


“ Copying verses of Tasso to improve my 
handwriting,” replied Bianca, without glan- 
cing up, and a roguish dimple became visible 
in her cheek. 

Marina contemplated her, marvelling at her 
fresh beauty ; and a mournful, stricken expres- 
sion dawned in her own dark eyes. This 
child lied. She was writing to the lover above 
stairs. Both united in cheating her, prevari- 
cated on every possible occasion, laughed in 
the sleeve at her credulity. Let them be- 
ware ! The affection of years for the younger 
child, almost maternal in indulgence, turned 
to a tide of seething hatred in her heart. 
For one awful moment of peril, in the anguish 
of self-conflict, Bianca’s fate trembled in the 
balance of crushing violence, as the birds had 
done. 

Marina returned to the outer room, and 
commenced to write a letter, in turn, with 
rapidly flowing sentences, pauses, erasures, 
and blots. 

She frowned haughtily when Bianca ap- 
proached with some trivial prattle, and mo- 
tioned her away. 

The letter completed, Marina sought the 


234 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


studio, as already described, scanned Gerard's 
work, and brought away with her the glass 
case containing the violin. 

Her bearing was sufficiently collected, with 
only a certain repressed excitement percepti- 
ble, which she skilfully turned to the account 
of family rancor against Daniele Falcioni, 
when questioned by Bianca. 

The picture was finished, and the usurer 
would claim the Stradivarius. They were 
in his debt, and the precious violin must 
be relinquished. Such a result was inevit- 
able. 

Bianca became excited and agitated in turn, 
imbued by the disquiet of her sister. What 
if Daniele Falcioni saw fit to also claim the 
roof above their heads ? 

“ Let us go out,” suggested Marina, with 
assumed carelessness, and as if to terminate a 
painful discussion. “ No, I will not pose for 
the artist to-day. My head aches.” 

In her own chamber she lavished few cares 
on her toilet. She removed the violin from 
the case, cut the strings with a knife, severed 
the bridge, and gashed the wood in deep 
scores of the lustrous surface. The deed was 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


235 


accomplished with a swiftness, strength, and 
ferocity destined to render the famous instru- 
ment mute forever. The fragments were then 
replaced in the case, covered with amber silk, 
and a slip of paper attached, on which she 
wrote : — 

Daniele Falcioni , 

From the grateful daughters of 
Leonardo TSardi. 

Placing the letter which she had inscribed 
at an earlier hour, beside the violin-case on a 
table, she made a rapid gesture of farewell to 
the chamber, and summoned Bianca to accom- 
pany her out. 

Bianca had peeped into the door, and seen 
the violin destroyed. She made no comment. 
Fear and surprise held her dumb. 

“ Are you ready Marina called from the 
vestibule. 

“ A moment, I pray you. I seek my 
gloves,” retorted Bianca. 

“ Little coquette ! ” responded Marina jest- 
ingly. 

Bianca drew a long, shuddering breath. 
She was not searching for missing gloves, but 


236 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

had attached the note to the neck of the 
carrier-pigeon, with the summons to Gerard 
to follow her. 

Gesualda tvas in the kitchen. Bianca 
paused irresolutely. 

“ We must tell her that we are going out,” 
she demurred, with a doubtful glance at 
Marina. 

44 Let her alone. We shall return in half 
an hour,” said the elder sister, yawning 
slightly. 

44 Gesualda seems to have lost her head this 
morning,” said Bianca. 44 1 believe it is the 
lottery.” 

44 Who knows ? ” was the enigmatical re- 
sponse. 

The walk was not as purposeless as it at 
first appeared. Marina left Bianca gazing in 
at the window of a jeweller’s shop, retraced 
her steps along a narrow calle , and entered the 
Monte di Pieta, where she unhesitatingly 
pawned the valuable watch and chain of her 
father. 

Before rejoining Bianca, she sought a stand 
of gondoliere of the vicinity, and, avoiding the 
older men, talked long and earnestly with a 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


237 


young fellow of sturdy build, and a good- 
humored, insouciant physiognomy. 

As a result of the colloquy, Marina sprang 
lightly into the gondola, and was taken around 
the corner into a dark little canal, where, 
beneath an arching bridge, she divided the 
money received for the watch into two piles. 
One portion she thrust into the hand of the 
bewildered gondoliere , and restored the, other 
to her own purse. 

“Listen! We must go over there to meet 
an old servant of our family this morning,” 
she explained. “It is an affair of property 
and creditors, my friend. If you take us 
swiftly, the rest of this sum of money will 
belong to you as well.” 

The gondoliere shrugged his broad shoul- 
ders. 

“ Altro ! 1 do not object to running a little 

risk now and then, and one must live. The 
wind is rising, signora , and soon ” — 

“It is perfectly safe at this hour,” inter- 
posed Marina imperiously. 

Bianca was astonished to hear the voice of 
her sister calling to her by name from the 
water. Approaching the bridge, she discerned 


238 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Marina in the gondola, leaning back languidly 
among the cushions. 

“ We are to go on the canal in such 
weather ! ” exclaimed the young girl, shrink- 
ing back. 

“ The weather is good, signorina ,” protested 
the gondoliere eagerly. 

The money intoxicated him, and he longed 
to claim the rest. 

“ I am tired,” said Marina. 66 Let us go 
back thus.” 

Relieved of her vague apprehensions, Bianca 
entered the gondola. Marina’s hand, cold, but 
firm as steel, closed on her wrist, as if holding 
her prisoner. Bianca did not attempt to 
release her soft arm. They would be home 
as soon as the pigeon delivered the note, she 
reasoned, and Gerard would laugh at her 
fears. Still she did not like the glitter of 
Marina’s eye, her quiet demeanor, the set look 
of her mouth. 

The gondola threaded rapidly the most shel- 
tered by-ways, then suddenly swept out on the 
broader space where the tide was beginning 
to run high. 

The sea-flood threatened the city. 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


289 


Bianca uttered a wondering cry. 

44 Oh, why are we here ? ” she demanded 
piteously. The grasp of Marina’s fingers on 
her wrist tightened. 

“ Don’t be a fool ! ” she whispered, in men- 
acing accents. 44 The gondoliere must suspect 
nothing, or he might be tempted to rob us. 
Listen. Something has happened to Gesualda, 
and she has sent for us to come over here 
immediately. Child ! The message was very 
curious. I will tell you later, when the man 
yonder is not all ears. Oh, I do not believe 
it is a misfortune! Hush! Gesualda must 
have found a treasure.” 

“ A treasure ? ” gasped Bianca, and her 
blue eyes dilated with childish surprise. 
44 Gesualda should have told us at home, and 
not have sent for us out here, when scirrocco 
is beginning to blow.” 

44 We can return as soon as we find her. 
Do you fear that the artist will miss you too 
much 1 ” inquired Marina, with a bitter sneer. 

Bianca blushed, and became silent. 

The light craft skimmed over the water in 
the direction of the sandy ledge, until Marina 
indicated a spot where she wished to land. 


240 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


She allowed Bianca to first step ashore. 

“ Look for Gesualda, and bid her hasten 
back with us,” she urged. 

“ How can Gesualda be here, when we left 
her in the kitchen at home ? ” protested 
Bianca, with fresh misgivings. 

44 You must ask her that question. Go ! ” 

Bianca, thus admonished, and fearful of the 
threatening aspect of sea and sky, lost no time 
in obeying. 

“ Gesualda ! ” she called aloud, running 
over the sands, and looking eagerly about for 
the stout and familiar figure of the nurse. 

Marina placed the remainder of the sum 
promised in the palm of the gondoliere . 

“ Now go back while the canal is safe,” 
she said. 

The man stared at her doubtfully. 

“ How will the ladies return \ ” he demurred. 

44 Oh, we are not going back to-day,” she 
replied with a smile. 44 Our old servant lives 
among the fisher-folk yonder.” 

44 To-morrow there will be a sea-flood in the 
city,” warned the gondoliere , shaking his head. 

44 Then we will remain,” said Marina Bardi, 
still smiling. 44 Ah! I like the storm.” 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


241 


“ Gesualcla is not here,” cried Bianca, re- 
tracing her steps. 44 1 have searched for her. 
Oh, it is some trick, Marina mia. Did the 
dwarf tell you ? Let us go back at once.” 

Marina was walking toward her. The gon- 
dola had turned in the direction of the town. 

Bianca paused, grew pale, and reeled be- 
neath the shock of terror and bewilderment. 
Oh, why had she consented to enter the gon- 
dola at all? She read her own doom in 
the stern look fixed upon her by Marina, 
and, falling on her knees, burst into sobs 
and tears. 

4 6 Oh, what is it ? ” shrieked the girl. 4 4 What 
has happened, that we may not go home in 
the gondola? You will drive me mad if you 
look at me like that.” 

Marina threw herself down on the sands 
beside her cowering companion, and, taking 
the blonde head of Bianca between her hands, 
covered curls and brow with hot and rapid 
kisses. 

44 1 love thee, little one ! ” she said wildly. 
44 Ah, I have brought thee away safely from 
all evil. Child, Gesualda is not here.- We are 
alone, the Bardi daughters, dearest. This is 


242 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

the end. Even our house will soon be taken 
from us. There remains for us only to die.” 

At these words Bianca, hushed and pant- 
ing, tore herself, by a desperate effort, from 
the arms encircling her, and fled towards the 
sandy brink of shore, screaming aloud for 
help. 

The gondola was rapidly disappearing, and 
the wind bore away the sound of her voice 
unheard. 

Marina followed her. 

“ Shriek thyself hoarse, and weep thyself 
blind, my beautiful angel. No one will hear,” 
she said tauntingly. 

Bianca wrung her hands together in an 
agony of despair, and continued to strain her 
eyes gazing over the waters, Surely help 
must come ! 

Marina approached nearer. The contem- 
plation of the girl’s agitation and fear seemed 
to inspire in her a savage joy, much as a feline 
creature plays with the trembling prey before 
devouring it. 

“Did you love the artist?” she demanded 
fiercely. 

“ Yes,” faltered Bianca. 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


243 


46 Poor child ! I save thee from all the 
miseries of deception and cruel desertion.” 

“ But Gerard loves me,” said Bianca won- 
deringly. 

44 Loves thee ! ” echoed the elder sister with 
scornful bitterness. 44 Loves thee with a boy’s 
sportive fancy, and until he meets another girl 
with a skin as white and hair as yellow as 
thine ! Loves thee as an artist, until he finds 
a new model. We have sheltered a traitor 
beneath our roof.” 

44 It is false ! Oh, he is good, and he loves 
me,” cried Bianca, with sudden spirit. 

The next moment she cowered before Mari- 
na’s look, fell again on her knees, and, stretch- 
ing out her hands towards the city, began to 
pray with a fervor of appeal urged by despair. 

Gerard must have received her note by the 
faithful pigeon. Gesualda must have missed 
her nursling by this time, and be arousing the 
neighbors by her cries and lamentations, to 
hasten to the rescue. 

The quivering lips framed every supplica- 
tion ever taught them in the parish church, 
and implored the aid of all the saints of the 
calendar. Buoyed up by her own supplica- 


244 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


tions, she beheld Gerard, as in a vision, coming 
over the water, the St. George strong to rescue. 

Marina observed her curiously. She listened 
without respect, but also without derision. 

u What use to pray ? ” she scoffed. “ The 
saints will not hear. They never help trouble 
and pain. Do I not know ] ” 

Then Bianca cast herself at Marina’s feet, 
and besought to be spared. Why should they 
die, when life was so beautiful ? 

In all her fawning caresses and tears, in- 
stinct prompted the girl to gain time, to di- 
vert the sombre thoughts of her sister, and 
avert the danger, even by an hour, a moment, 
hanging over their heads. 

“ No ! ” retorted Marina. 

Gradually she ceased to listen to the appeals 
of the young creature clinging to her feet. 
She had finished with the wearisome bondage 
called life. The straw of Gerard’s devotion, 
at which she had caught with eager fingers, 
had broken, casting her back into the gulf; 
and as the ground crumbled beneath her feet, 
she had taken Bianca with her. Bianca was 
to be the lamb sacrificed on this altar of a 
terrible vengeance. She saved the child in her 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


245 


innocence. Bianca should not be left behind 
to suffer for the love of man. 

The exaltation of her mood was fast gaining 
upon her. She cast aside her hat, and loosened 
the heavy masses of her black hair, turning a 
look of irrepressible longing towards the sea. 
Out there amidst the tossing surges were to 
be found oblivion, annihilation. 

The spot was isolated, and the weather 
rendered the scene one of most tragic desola- 
tion. The sisters stood on a waste of sand, 
which wended inland in irregular mounds, 
seamed by sluggish pools and winding chan- 
nels. The low-hanging clouds seemed to min- 
gle their dun-colored masses with the billows 
of the Adriatic, which were tawny and crested 
with foam, as they beat on the shore with ever- 
increasing violence. Lightning flashed on the 
horizon, and the tide flowing towards Venice 
in the channels had acquired the tint of jade- 
stone. 

Not a human being was in sight. A sail 
flitted before the blast, and several sea-birds 
winged their flight across the Lido. The gon- 
dola could not have made its way here at this 
hour. 


246 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Time had ceased for Marina Bardi. Bianca, 
exhausted by her own supplications, lay prone 
on the ground, stunned by the thunder of the 
surf and the rush of the wind. 

44 Enough ! ” exclaimed Marina, arousing 
her victim roughly. 44 1 have listened pa- 
tiently and long. Finish.” 

She dragged the trembling Bianca to an 
upright posture, and took from her bosom a 
thin and flat bottle which contained a white 
liquid. 

44 Half for thee, and half for me,” she said. 

A wail of despair was wrung from Bianca’s 
lips at these words; but only the sea-birds 
answered her, by a harsh note, as they flew 
past overhead. 

Marina had found this phial in the chest 
of the musician’s chamber. The glass stopple 
was covered with skin, and by way of label 
Leonardo Bardi had written : — 

The Great Temptation. 

She now tore off the skin covering the cork, 
and proffered it to Bianca. 

44 Drink ! ” she commanded. 

Bianca received the fatal bottle in her cold 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


247 


hands, and looked fixedly at her sister. Es- 
cape was impossible. Hope was spent. 

Marinas eyes wavered, shifted, and she 
averted her head. No ! Even in the shadowy 
land beyond, she could not confront the ordeal 
of having watched Bianca put the bottle to 
her lips. 

There was a momentary silence before 
Marina extended her fingers to receive back 
the phial. Even then she moved away, with- 
out again looking at her companion. She 
heard a feeble cry behind her, and was dimly 
aware that Bianca, had fallen insensible on the 
sands. 

The distant city was already a blank, the 
girl on the sands forgotten ; for before her 
extended the sea, storm-driven. 

“ Enrico mio ! ” she cried aloud ; and the 
mingled voices of the tossing surges and the 
wind caught up the name, until the prolonged 
echo filled all space. 

The scirrocco lifted her tangled hah, the salt 
spray blinded her, the wide-spreading circles 
of white foam obliterated her footsteps. 

What did she behold, pausing there on the 
brink of eternity ? A leaf caught in the eddy 


248 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

of the tempest, a creature of the dust blas- 
pheming against her Creator, — surely in the 
awful flash of awakening, as the lightning 
sparkled on the dim horizon, and in the empti- 
ness and darkness of her soul’s misery, she 
saw 

“ The grave’s mouth, the heaven’s gate, God’s face 
With implacable love evermore.” 

And so slept. 

In the city, the three persons most inter- 
ested in the fate of the Bardi sisters stood on 
the landing, and looked at each other in per- 
plexity. 

Gerard strove to decipher the tangled thread 
of Marina’s reproaches, taunts, and threats, in 
the letter. He was too bewildered to. grasp 
the full meaning of her passionate self- vindica- 
tion at once, although the shadow of her 
meaning fell upon him with a chill presenti- 
ment of evil. She had been betrayed by his 
admiration into believing him her own suitor 
instead of the lover of Bianca. Such was the 
burthen of the missive. She had quitted the 
house of the musician forever. 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


249 


Where had she gone? 

Gesualda’s face lengthened. Pippo watched 
the artist furtively, and a gray tinge pervaded 
his features. Did the dwarf experience re- 
morse, or a superstitious dread of the turn 
of events ? He was the first to break the 
silence. 

“ The Signorina Marina certainly had an 
attack of the nerves to-day. She killed my 
parrakeet this morning, in a fit of passion. 
Misericordia ! I must bury Giovanni in the 
garden at least,” he said, in a whining tone of 
personal injury. 

He descended to the court, and removed 
the tiny corpse from a niche in the sculptured 
well. The wrought lid had served the parra- 
keet for a most majestic chamber of death, 
where he had lain since morning in state. 
Pippo dug a little grave near the pomegranate 
tree of the garden, and buried his pet, utter- 
ing groaning lamentations the while. He 
hated the sea, and to have dropped the parra- 
keet into the canal would have been to add a 
tribute to the mighty foe always threatening 
life beyond the narrow barrier of Lidi. 

Left alone with Gesualda, Gerard communi- 


250 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


cated his fears to her, that, from the tenor 
of the letter, Marina had discovered the love of 
Bianca and himself, and was bitterly offended. 
She should not have been deceived as to the 
true state of their mutual relation. 

“ What good could come of so much pre- 
varication ? ” exclaimed the young man, with 
anger and swift contrition. 

“ True,” assented Gesualda, nodding her 
head. “The little one would have it so. 
Young girls are like that.” 

“ Marina reproaches me as a traitor,” added 
Gerard. 

“ Poveretta ! she has been so unfortunate, 
that every thing goes to her head,” said the 
nurse. 

Even now the apprehensions of Gesualda 
were not deep. Gerard bit his lip, and hesi- 
tated. Should he tell her more ? Surely not. 

“ I must find them without delay in this 
weather,” he said. 

“ Altro ! They cannot have gone far from 
home. I must have been in the kitchen when 
they went out, and even the little one said 
nothing to me.” 

Gerard laid his hand on Gesualda’s shoulder, 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


251 


and led her up-stairs to the studio. He 
showed her the picture, half cleansed of a 
later covering, and then the recess containing 
the chest. 

Gesualda trembled, and burst into tears. 
Her usual voluble exclamations completely 
failed her tongue. She understood all now. 

Leonardo Bardi had taken the jewels and 
lace of his wife, added a sum of money as the 
dowry of his daughters, and stored their por- 
tion in the chest of this concealed recess. 

Well did Gesualda remember the time when 
the violinist had made alterations and repairs 
of the upper floor, with the intention of dwell- 
ing permanently at Venice. She also recalled 
his statement that he had made suitable pro- 
vision for his children, on the occasion of his 
subsequent departure. Why had he hidden 
the treasure? Did he fear the passion for 
gambling which consumed him, more than the 
entrance of other thieves ? 

He had returned to Venice restless and 
unhappy, and given his consent to Marina’s 
wedding the officer. At the same time he 
had made the reservation that Bianca was too 
young for marriage. 


252 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


The girl, in her petulant jealousy, had re- 
belled and perhaps driven him to self-destruc- 
tion. The knife and the key found beside 
him on the floor explained a temptation to rifle 
the chest in secret, and the pistol the final 
resistance. 

Gesualda dried her tears, and embraced 
Gerard with rapture. 

“You must guard the place in my absence,” 
he said, moved by her enthusiasm. 

“ I will keep watch. Never fear ! Only 
bid the children come home quickly ; whisper 
a word in their ear, that their old Gesualda 
awaits them. Ah ! who can say the lottery 
has not turned up lucky numbers for us to- 
day \ ” 

She locked the door, and put the key in her 
pocket, with a gesture signifying that Daniele 
Falcioni or any other intruder must enter the 
studio only across her inert body. 

In the streets general uneasiness prevailed. 
The water hissed and gurgled through every 
aperture, and brimmed above the rim of quay 
and bridge. 

The task of following the Bardi sisters had 
seemed practicable enough at the outset ; and 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


253 


yet Gerard found himself baffled at every 
turn, by careless indifference and absolute 
ignorance. One neighbor remembered hav- 
ing seen them pass at an early hour of the 
day. Another believed they took the direc- 
tion of the Rialto. 

The artist went and came, found traces and 
lost them again ; while the town watched the 
waters lap the marble pavement of churches, 
and glide beneath doors into vestibule and 
court. 

An hour elapsed in this fruitless search. 

Pippo called to him from the battlement of 
the wall, where the dwarf was perched, watch- 
ing the general confusion. Pippo detested the 
slimy, encroaching waters, as disturbing him 
in his accustomed routine ; yet he enjoyed the 
discomfiture of the citizens. 

“Why not ask Daniele Falcioni?” he sug- 
gested. “ Eh ! The usurer has the scent of a 
bird of prey.” 

Gerard pondered on the proposition, and it 
acquired value in his eyes. He had refrained 
from seeking Falcioni, as the enemy of the 
family. In addition, he did not intend to re- 
veal his own discoveries of the morning. 


254 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


He found Falcioni superintending the re- 
moval of his treasures to an upper floor, 
beyond the reach of the increasing canal. 

The latter fixed his piercing glance on the 
young mans agitated face, and made no com- 
ment. 

“ Where is the letter ? ” he inquired, after 
a pause. 

Gerard tendered the envelope mechanically. 
At a time less critical he would have hesitated 
to do so. 

Falcioni’s glance ran over the lines, un- 
moved, and pounced on the closing sentence 
of the blotted page : — 

4 4 The sea always calls me” 

44 Yes, the sea can be heard very distinctly 
to-day,” said Gerard meditatively. 

44 The girl is quite mad. She has gone to 
the sea,” said Falcioni decisively. 

Gerard grew pale, staggered, and caught at 
a post for support. 

4 * To the sea?” he reiterated. 44 How can 
she have reached it? ” 

44 Eh ! Some boatman took her at an ear- 
lier hour, if well paid for the risk. Hoes not 
the pretty Bianca suspect as much ? ” 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


255 


44 She has gone also,” stammered Gerard. 

44 Dio ! ” ejaculated the older man, and his 
countenance became serious. 

The dwarf Pippo had estimated Daniel e 
Falcioni at his true value, as one gifted with 
peculiar sagacity in arriving at a desired re- 
sult ; or was it that a profound knowledge of 
human nature, albeit sceptical and contempt- 
uous, guided him in this as in all other emer- 
gencies ? 

Falcioni directed his steps to the Monte di 
Pieta, and noted speedily a watch and chain, 
pledged on that same day, which he recog- 
nized as belonging to Leonardo Bardi. 

Then he went to the nearest traghetto of 
gondolas, and questioned the gondoliere . All 
were ready to assist him to a certain extent, 
mindful of his wealth and influence. The 
young Antonio was dining at a neighboring 
osteria. Fie had taken two ladies in his gon- 
dola in the morning, at least through the city. 

Antonio, when questioned, was found to be 
a trifle flushed with wine, and surly in mood. 
He had taken two ladies across to the Lido, at 
an early hour, for a reasonable price. What 
of that] They went to visit an old servant 


256 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


who dwelt among the fisher-folk, and did not 
intend to return immediately. 

At sight of Gerard’s face the young gon- 
doliere had paused, and grown pale, in turn, 
beneath the bronze of cheek and throat. Eh ! 
He was an honest man. What devil’s plot 
had he got into ? He remembered now, that 
the smile of the handsome woman made one 
feel cold. 

Falcioni took him by the arm. 

“ If you carried those girls over yonder, you 
should be willing to fetch them back,” he in- 
sisted with severity. 

Antonio’s pride fired up. Altro ! He was 
ready to lend a hand. He was not afraid to 
go where any gondolier in Venice might ven- 
ture, only a cockle-shell of a gondola would 
no longer serve for the voyage. 

Falcioni waited until the stanchest craft 
procurable was manned and made ready, and 
Gerard, accompanied by Antonio, had stepped 
on board. 

The antiquarian then prudently drew back, 
and retraced his way to his own quarter to 
guard his property. He kept all conjectures 
as to the fate of the Bardi sisters safely locked 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


257 


in his own breast. He was a man of few 
words, on occasion. The house of the musi- 
cian remained. 

As he approached the campo , he noticed 
an unusual circumstance. The heavy portal 
of the Gothic palace had been closed. 

Daniele Falcioni halted suddenly. 

“ It is to keep me out,” he thought, with 
anger and suspicion. 

“ The Gesualda fears the rising waters,” 
proclaimed the neighbors. 

“ Perhaps it is because the sisters will 
never come back,” thought Pippo. 

He did not dare to utter the doubt aloud, 
but slunk into a church, and muttered a 
prayer. He failed to take the parrakeets 
into his confidence on this occasion. Did 
he pray for the repose of the spirit of the 
lost Giovanni] 

Daniele Falcioni knocked on the door, a 
summons that echoed in mournful reverbera- 
ations through the interior. 

Eumor was abroad in the very air, that 
some misfortune, tragic and terrible, had be- 
fallen the Bardi sisters. They had left their 
home in anger, and gone away together. 


258 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


People gathered in knots, and gazed at the 
familiar exterior of the Gothic palazzo with 
the fresh interest invariably inspired by an 
accident, a * catastrophe. The movements of 
the usurer were watched in silence. 

Gesualda appeared, and inspected the visitor 
through a little casement, protected by iron 
bars like those of a prison. Her eyes sparkled 
with unwonted animation, while a bloom of 
happiness seemed to transfigure her swarthy 
lineaments. 

Her aspect astonished the creditor, prepared 
for pallid cheeks, and eyelids swollen with 
weeping over the prolonged absence of her 
foster-children. 

Gesualda, as warder of this castle, could 
defy Falcioni and the town. 

“ Has the signore come to receive the vio- 
lin? ’’ she inquired slyly. 

“Yes. Why do you close the great gates 
at this hour ? ” demanded Falcioni, peering at 
her keenly. 

“ The canal is rising, signore , and the doors 
keep back the flood a little from the court. 
Wait ! ” 

Gesualda had discovered the violin-case, 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


259 


and discerned the meaning of the slip of 
paper attached to the silk cover. Was it not 
a part of the triumph of this auspicious day, 
that Marina should wreck the Stradivarius 
before giving it up to the common enemy? 
Gesualda gloried in the deed. She could not 
resist launching the premeditated defiance at 
the long* dreaded creditor in person. 

The doors opened the width of the chain 
span, and Falcioni received the case, wrapped 
in the amber silk covering ; after which the 
portal swiftly closed, and the bolt slid in the 
socket. 

Still puzzled, the usurer entered his own 
shop. He read the paper slowly : — 

Daniele Falcioni , 

From the grateful daughters of 
Leonardo Flardi. 

He lifted the silk cover, and discovered the 
broken fragments of the matchless violin, 
heaped together in the glass case. A cry of 
pain and rage escaped from his breast. 

He strode back across the campo , and rained 
repeated blows on the gate, upbraiding the 


260 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


inmates for the perfidy of the act, and threat- 
ening speedy reprisals. Gesualda remained 
mute and invisible. 

Safe within the habitation built to resist a 
siege of sea-pirates, if necessary, the nurse 
could defy Daniele Falcioni. 

The boat made its way against baffling cur- 
rents, now washed by an incoming wave, and 
again tossed high on the crest of a second 
billow, or plunging into a seeming vortex 
of angry waters. The lightning quivered from 
cloud to cloud, rain drenched the voyagers, 
and the wind tore madly at the canvas, render- 
ing all attempts to use the sail futile. The 
men bent to the oars, therefore, with slow and 
heavy progress. 

To Gerard Grootz the passage was like his 
own mental and moral condition. He suffered 
acutely, then lapsed into benumbing apathy, 
as the boat plunged and staggered amidst the 
turbid flood. The love of the two women with 
whom he had dwelt recurred to him vividly, 
terribly, like the mad sweep of the wind, the 
sudden blaze of the lightning. Marina’s kiss 
on his lips had awakened manhood within 
him that night in the dark sola, when Gesu- 


ADRIATIC WAVES. 


261 


alda’s lamp blew out. Marina’s devotion had 
tried to shape his faltering talent to genius, 
by the inspiration of her presence. The words 
of her letter still troubled his brain. 

Antonio indicated the spot where the sisters 
had landed, and leaped ashore. Gerard fol- 
lowed as if in a dream. 

On the sands, a girl with golden hair was 
recovering from a swoon, while a fisherman 
bent over her, striving to bring her back to 
consciousness with simple restoratives. Bianca 
had poured the contents of the bottle down 
her neck, instead of drinking it, and then 
fallen in a faint of terror. She was alive, 
safe, unharmed. 

Did Gerard Grootz respond to her first 
smile of recognition and gratitude ] He never 
knew. 

“ Where is she ] ” 

Did his pale and dry lips frame the ques- 
tion] Had the other men about him made 
the inquiry] The wind and the waters re- 
peated it. Where is she] Ah, where is 
she] 

Bianca understood. She raised herself, 
pushed back her wet tresses, and gazed fear- 


262 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

fully around. “ I don’t know,” she replied, 
with a shuddering sigh. 

Gerard went on with rapid, uncertain step, 
and strained gaze fixed on the sea. 

“ Marina, come back ! I did not under- 
stand. I never knew myself. Come back ! 
Come back ! ” 

Marina was gone, and the green Adriatic 
waves lapped on the strand where she had 
stood. 

Gerard Grootz fell, and knew no more. 


THE PARIS SALON . 


263 


CHAPTER X. 

THE PARIS SALON. 

In the year 18 — , the first prize of the Salon 
was awarded to the artist Gerard Grootz, for 
a picture known as “ The Suicide.” 

All Paris flocked to the Salon. The ladies 
in fresh toilets, and their attendant cavaliers 
prepared to devote more attention to the 
smiles of capricious beauty than to discerning 
the merits of the works of art grouped on the 
walls. 

Professional critics mingled with the crowd, 
making a note here and there. Timid foreign- 
ers, pupils of celebrated masters, hovered near 
their own neatly framed studies of Breton 
fisher-girls and Italian goat-herds, with assumed 
unconcern of demeanor. 

There is a fitting time for a picture to be 
appreciated, as well as for a statesman to rise 
in a political convulsion, and a soldier to lead 
in a campaign. 


264 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


The mood of the world’s capital that spring 
was morbid, sinister, tragic. A revolution had 
wrecked the hopes of a dynasty ; a murder 
or two had occurred on the boulevards ; a 
popular author had plunged his prolific pen 
inta a seething caldron of crime, with elec- 
trifying result to his readers ; a great actress 
nightly writhed on the stage of the Theatre 
Frangais, in the last agonies of a lost soul. 

The exhibition of the Salon indicated the 
fever-throb of the popular pulse. Huge can- 
vases literally ran with blood, in every imagin- 
able phase of carnage, from the dethronement 
of a king clad in ermine, to the be heading 
of an impostor on the steps of an Oriental 
palace. 

“ The Suicide” exercised a spell of its own. 

The careworn philosopher stood long with 
folded arms, in rapt contemplation. The spi- 
rituelle lady of fashion grew pale beneath her 
rouge, and returned for another look at it. 
The most phlegmatic, cynical, frivolous, 
yielded to the same spell of attraction, thus 
forming a throng around the study of Gerard 
Grootz. 

There was an enigma to be deciphered ; and 


THE PARIS SALON. 


265 


each felt impelled to solve the problem, at 
least to his own mind. 

The picture represented a girl fleeing over 
the sands towards the sea. Behind her, in the 
extreme limit of distance, the domes and tow- 
ers of a city were visible ; before her heaved 
the tawny Adriatic waves. To glance back 
at the town would be to repent ; to advance 
"to the water’s brink was to perish. The scene 
was a familiar one. Venice was the city in 
the background, and the girl was traversing 

“ The weird sands of Lido.” 

. The sombre obscurity of the study possessed 
a certain vitality and latent power, although all 
accessories of life and warmth were withdrawn. 
Threatening clouds swept low on the horizon. 
A solitary bird hovered near on troubled wing ; 
and the naked desolation of the shore, with 
pallid gleams of water marking the morass, 
and tangled roots of weeds, stretched in level, 
oppressive monotony, as far as the eye could 
reach. It was 

“ A bare strand 

Of hillock, heaped from ever-shifting sand, 

Matted with thistle and amphibious weeds.” 


266 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


Cast in present shadow, the whole canvas 
palpitated with the promise of effulgent light. 
A ray tinged the distant domes, converting 
their surface to the semblance of pearl, and, 
traversing space, must soon touch the flying 
figure as well. Would the light come too 
late ? In this sense of suspense lay the charm 
of the work. 

The rude winds lifted the tresses of the 
girl’s black hair, and swept back the draperies 
which enveloped her slight form. Her face, 
dark and beautiful, was turned towards the 
observer, the lips firmly set, and the eyes 
fixed wearily and questioningly on the spec- 
tator. In the depths of these limpid eyes was 
to be read a life problem, the soul-sickness 
that maddeps, the flagging of one spent in the 
battle. 

The crowd gazed long, and each made his 
own answer. 

The artist was sufficiently well known by 
the public, as a rising man of talent, who now 
attained greatness in this latest effort. 

In the delicate freshness of a spring day 
at Paris, a lady drove across the Place de la 
Concorde, and up the Champs Elysees. 


THE PARIS SALON. 


267 


She had arrived from Brussels the previous 
evening, and was prepared to enjoy a short 
sojourn in the capital, with the leisurely move- 
ments of one familiar with the town. 

Well dressed and still young, with a digni- 
fied and composed manner, there was a heavy 
element in her blonde features, and an in- 
difference about manner and glance, which 
betokened a calm temperament ; while the 
firmness of mouth and chin evinced inde- 
pendence and decision of character, on oc- 
casion. 

Madame Sturm was the wife of an Antwerp 
banker, and daughter of the Amsterdam mer- 
chant Jacob Van Limburg. 

She entered the rooms of the exhibition, 
and, drawn by the throng towards a certain 
point of general interest, found herself stand- 
ing before the work of Gerard Grootz. 

The name of the painter was familiar to 
Madame Sturm, from early associations. 
Gerard Grootz had made a portrait of her- 
self in blooming maidenhood, seated in a 
casement, half screened by jars of tulips. At 
Venice the artist had discovered a duplicate 
of the gem of her father’s gallery, the Gior- 


268 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


gione portrait. The young man had hastened 
to present the picture to his benefactor, as it 
had been found in the possession of his wife’s 
family. Thereupon a lively controversy had 
arisen among art connoisseurs and even ama- 
teurs. The original dealer insisted stanchly 
that the first canvas was the Giorgione ; and 
hostile ranks even hinted that Gerard had 
got up a clever imposture, in the Sea City, to 
gain a degree of personal credit from a dubious 
transaction. 

We like to stand by our chosen gods in 
this world. 

Jacob Van Limburg inclined to the opinion 
that his work was the original, and spent 
much time in debate, study, and correspond- 
ence with valued authorities, on the subject. 

As a solution of the difficulty, the pictures 
were hung at either end of the gallery, framed 
alike, and draped with tapestry. 

The greatest compliment the host could pay 
an honored guest was to invite him to inspect 
the two works, and impart Lis respective 
opinion a& to which might have been attrib- 
uted to Giorgione, and which to Paris Bor- 
done or a later brush. 


THE PARIS SALON. 


269 


Madame Sturm took a chair, and gazed 
long at the picture, as if absorbed in thought. 
Her full and placid countenance remained 
unmoved, and her gray-blue eye untroubled. 
She looked at that desperate creature, form- 
ing a link in the sisterhood of woman, fleeing 
along the Adriatic shore, with the specula- 
tive curiosity of one sheltered from trouble, 
poverty, even emotion of a conflicting nature. 
Rachel Van Limburg, was the mortal on the 
rock, who watches the storm sweep past in 
the valley, uprooting forests, and devastating 
hamlets, with a half-terrified fascination in the 
peril of others. At the same time the eyes 
of the girl in the picture moved her strangely, 
weighed her bulky prosperity, proved her 
tame insignificance, dwarfed her petty ambi- 
tions. The rich woman was shocked, startled, 
appalled. She sighed involuntarily, and then 
she became aware that a man was watching 
her attentively. 

He was a stout person of medium height, 
with a golden moustache, twisted at the ends, 
and a goatee. The nobility of the brow and 
eyes alone saved the entire man from the 
commonplace aspect of a bon-vivant. 


270 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 


Madame Sturm rose, and extended her 
hand, with a smile. 

“ Monsieur Gerard Grootz, if I am not 
mistaken,” she said. 

He bowed ceremoniously, and touched the 
fingers tendered him. 

“ I fear you have forgotten your first model, 
Rachel Van Limburg,” pursued Madame 
Sturm. 

“ Madame, I have never forgotten the kind- 
ness and grace of Mademoiselle Van Limburg,” 
replied Gerard. 

A slight tinge of color warmed the fairness 
of the lady’s complexion. 

“ My father will be proud of the success of 
his protege ,” she added, with her customary 
suavity. “ Take me to your atelier without 
delay.” 

Gerard had attained the ambition of the 
modern artist. He dwelt in a small hotel of 
the Boulevard Malesherbes, with a detached 
studio in the rear, separated by a little garden. 
Both mansion atid studio were filled with 
bronzes, statuettes, Venetian lamps, Oriental 
rugs and embroideries, and mediaeval furni- 
ture. 


THE PARIS SALON. 


271 


Bianca welcomed Madame Sturm with her 
smile of infantile sweetness. 

Who so happy as Bianca, returned to life 
from the swoon of death on the sands of Lido, 
and naively delighted by the admiration be- 
stowed upon her at the opera and on the 
boulevard] Who so radiant in prosperity as 
Bianca, whether consenting to don a new bon- 
net, named for her by a fashionable milliner 
La Blanche, or wear at the races and in the 
Bois de Bologne a mantle to be designated La 
Belle Yenetienne? Perpetual good humor 
lurked in her dimples, and beneath the long 
and silky lashes of her soft eyes. A fond 
mother she was, as much diverted by the f'etes 
at St. Cloud, the peep-shows of the curbstone, 
and the toys of the shop-windows, as were her 
children. The cup of her contentment was 
full. 

Bianca never expressed a wish to revisit 
her native city. Once she had encountered 
Daniele Falcioni at Baden-Baden, and fainted 
at sight of the once familiar and dreaded 
creditor. 

Gesualda also smiled on Madame Sturm, all 
in judging the affability of the stranger lady 


272 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


a trifle cold. Doubtless the women of Gerard’s 
native land were like her, Gesualda reasoned, 
not without a touch of Italian superiority. 

The old nurse was contented as well. How 
could Bianca thrive without her care ? How 
could the children be left to the charge of 
these foreign servants, or the injudicious pet- 
ting of tlieir mother, when they would run the 
risk of succumbing to sweetmeats like the off- 
spring of the Turkish harem ? For the rest, 
Gesualda would like to end her days on her 
native island of Burano. 

Both women were very devout, and never 
failed in a rigorous observance of religious 
ceremonies, especially at the season of year 
when the Vigil of All Souls falls due. At 
that date, masses for the repose of the souls 
of Leonardo Bardi and his daughter were 
celebrated in distant Venice. 

The children responded prettily to the 
greetings of Madame Sturm, — golden-haired 
and bright-eyed Bianca, Maria, and Claudia, 
while the boy stood dark and silent in the 
midst. 

When the son was born, the two women 
whispered low, — 


THE PARIS SALON. 


273 


“We wish him christened Marino.” 

u So be it,” replied Gerard, with whitening 
lips. 

44 Let me show Madame Sturm my favorite 
picture before you visit the studio,” entreated 
Bianca, with charming insistance. 

In the larger salon of the hotel was a fine 
copy of an altar-picture of St. George and the 
Dragon. 

44 Your husband’s work 1 ” questioned the 
visitor. 

44 This is only a copy of the altar-picture of 
our parish church at Venice, madame ; but he 
is the San Giorgio of our lives,” with a caress- 
ing glance at Gerard. 

44 1 understand,” said Rachel Van Limburg, 
in a musing tone. 

The studio revealed to the inspection of this 
sympathetic critic the leading events of the 
artist’s career. 

On one wall the lovely Bianca and her 
children, as Venus and Cupids, siren, nymph, 
and cherubs, gathered all the sunshine about 
their soft flesh, and the shining tissues of rose 
and gold enveloping their limbs. 

Beyond, a dwarf, with a face full of intelli- 


274 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

gence and malice, perched on a flight of steps 
beneath a garden wall, holding a cage of 
parrakeets on his knee, while a green canal 
flowed in shadow at his feet. A servant was 
seated in a damp court, near a sculptured 
well, shredding vegetables into a copper basin, 
with a heap of gourds, figs, and pomegranates 
at her side. An antiquarian, in a dark and 
vaulted interior, held up a goblet of ancient 
Venetian glass to detect flaws. Goldoni, as a 
boy, floated in the boat with the company of 
actors. 

On the opposite wall, an old man, bent and 
worn, led a boy along the Rhine-bank in the 
autumn morning, with the stork’s nest still 
visible through the fog crowning a farmhouse 
chimney, with a mill adjacent A name was 
carved on the frame of this picture : — 

The Stork Children. 

Scarcely less sombre in coloring, and more 
weird in imagination, the next study repre- 
sented the gates and court of a Gothic palazzo 
at midnight, with the phantom hosts of the 
dead sweeping over in the wavering mists 
from the cemetery island of San Michele on 


THE PARIS SALON. 


275 


the eye of All Souls, and halting for one 
wraith to enter, and ascend the carved stair- 
way. 

This work had obtained for the artist honor- 
able mention the previous year. 

Madame Sturm lingered long in contempla- 
tion of the adjacent group of sketches; and 
Gerard, ever sensitive to the influence of the 
companion of the moment, observed her with 
increasing agitation. 

The same model as the subject of the prize- 
work gazed back at her from these designs, 
and the features were not those of Gerard’s 
dimpled wife. Marina Bardi, calm, somno- 
lent, with low smooth brow, draped as the 
Byzantine princess in her dull garments 
wrought with angels’ heads, and mantle of 
peacock sheen, held the lily in her slender 
fingers. Marina Bardi, scornful and obdurate, 
paused erect where all knelt, bathed by the 
glory of golden light in the church of San 
Marco. Marina Bardi, transported by jealousy, 
stood in the gondola, with the red roses falling 
from her hair into the limpid waters of the 
lagoon, while she looked after an unfaithful 
lover. The deserted girl found a strange, 


276 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

reflected image in the moon, as a woman of 
mysterious charm poised in her boat, curved to 
a crescent outline, with the silvery light shed 
from her rippling garments down on the 
glancing waves. 

The most finished of these designs repre- 
sented a Venetian balcony, elaborate in detail, 
the rich and glowing loveliness of the occupant 
enhanced by the decorations of a parish festa. 

Madame Sturm reverted to the picture of 
“ The Stork Children.” 

“ You are thinking of the wretched failure 
I have proved, madame, since the old man 
Elias Heins led me from the Rhine-bank,” 
exclaimed Gerard with bitterness. “ I hoped, 
in my rash youthful presumption, to become a 
Giorgione. What am I in my prime? A 
painter of women and children, with unusual 
cleverness, if you will, in the management of 
tones and draperies.” 

Rachel Van Limburg shook her head 
gently. 

“You are unjust to your own merits,” she 
rejoined. “ I am wondering if your devel- 
opment would have been different had you 
remained beneath our cloudy Northern skies.” 


THE PARIS SALON. 


277 


u Surely I should have been different,” 
assented Gerard, with a sigh. “ I was a stork 
child, and longed to try my wings.” 

“ I find an element here lacking in the latter 
studies,” added the lady. 

What element, I beg \ ” demanded the 
artist eagerly. 

“ Originality, freshness, perhaps power. 
However, to-day you have reached the goal. 
The future belongs to you.” 

“ Yes,” assented Gerard. 

“ I wish to own c The Suicide/ my friend,” 
she concluded, after a pause. 

Gerard turned to her with emotion percept- 
ible on his features, and kissed her hand. 

“ Consider the picture as already yours, 
madame,” he replied. “ I had not intended 
to part with it, otherwise. I was forced to 
paint it. I have put aside the sketch every 
year, as something painful, repugnant to 
myself ; and the temptation always returns.” 

When Madame Sturm had gone, with many 
gracious expressions of interest, Gerard shut 
himself up in his studio, and remained plunged 
in meditation. He refused Bianca admission, 
or to accompany the family to Versailles. 


278 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN . 


The pretty woman shrugged her plump 
shoulders, and pouted a little. Why attempt 
to fathom the varying moods of the artistic 
temperament 'l The visit of the stranger lady 
from the North had left him in a bad humor. 

Bianca assumed her most audacious and 
eccentric toilet, and adjusted the sashes and 
furbelows of her children with maternal com- 
placency, and went forth, with all the holiday 
world, to gaze at the spouting spray of the 
great fountains. 

Left alone, Gerard placed the picture of 
“ The Stork Children ” on an easel, and looked 
long at the once-familiar scene. 

The presence of Rachel Van Limburg 
transported him to the misty skies and fleeting 
sunshine of the Low Countries. The whirr 
of the windmill hummed in his ears, mingled 
with the beating of the waves on the ocean- 
bound dykes. 

What fatS had befallen Elias Heins, most 
whimsical of benefactors'? Gerard did not 
know. The old man might have fallen on the 
deserted highway, belated on some frosty night, 
and been swept away to the grave by the hand 
of public charity. Possibly he was roaming 


THE PARIS SALON. 


279 


on, defying time to check his powers. On 
several occasions Gerard had detected a fancied 
resemblance in some wayfarer of the crowd. 
He would have scarcely been surprised, had a 
tap on the studio-door announced the advent 
of the savant , to test the quality of the bread 
of charity once cast on the waters by his hand. 

Gerard had communicated with the miller’s 
wife, at the date of his marriage, and received 
a reply, curt in form, written by the miller, to 
the effect that the mother was dead, while the 
other children were well. 

In the atelier , adorned with many works of 
merit, on the eve of success, the second stork 
child felt a sense of personal isolation as keen 
as that of Elias Heins when nightfall over- 
took the philosopher in wood or open country. 

Gradually the thoughts of the artist turned 
into another channel. From the farm of the 
Ehine-bank to the house of the musician at 
Venice, was the completion of the chord of 
memory. 

Even now when his eye fell on the sketch 
of Pippo yonder, crouching on the steps, with 
his cage of parrakeets on his knee, his lips 
muttered, — 


280 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


“ Accursed dwarf! ” * 

Fever had succeeded the discovery of Bianca 
Bardi on the sands of Lido, and delirium de- 
clared full sway before the boat regained the 
town. 

Wary Gesualda opened the portal to admit 
them, and spread a couch in the lower sala. 
Doctor, nurse, and evenDaniele Falcioni, might 
come to look at Gerard, and minister to him ; 
but no mention was made of that upper story, 
with its treasures, of which Gesualda kept 
the key in her pocket. Even the grief of the 
nurse for her lost Marina could not make her 
lose sight, for a moment, of her trust. 

Gerard, during those hours of suffering, had 
seen only the dwarf Pippo, and his cage of 
green birds. Pippo dashed the cup of cooling 
"drink from his parched lips, mocked at his 
helplessness, and triumphed over sorrow, 
perched on the foot of the bed, with quirk and 
grimace. 

In the lapse of hours the artist took pencil 
and brush. Once more the fagade of the old 
Gothic palazzo grew beneath his touch. Gate, 
basement, and campo were veiled in shadows 
of night; while above in the clear vault of 


THE PARIS SALON. 


281 


sky was visible the nightly miracle of stars, 
scintillating in illimitable distance, shooting 
athwart the zenith with the pale emerald 
glow of meteors, reflected in long, quivering 
arrows of silvery light in the sleeping waters 
of the canal. 

Leonardo Bardi stood in his casement, play- 
ing on his violin ; and the airy shapes of celes- 
tial harmonies, evoked by his bow, escaped 
on glittering ephemeral wings out into the 
night, drawn upward to the infinite space of 
the star- worlds, while mortals crept near to 
listen in the campo below. 

Surely a voice spoke in the silence of the 
studio : — 

“ At last you have given to the house a 
soul.” 

The years with their seasons recur in the 
Sea City. The grandfather has dropped like 
a withered leaf, and two old men resembling 
him ply their craft of hooking the gondolas to 
shore. Pippo, the dwarf, has abandoned his 
calling of telling fortunes with the aid of the 
parrakeets, and haunts the steps of churches 
to beg for a dole. He has lost his former 


282 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


vivacity, and become dull, morose, half-idiotic. 
The neighbors affirm that some stroke of evil 
left him thus, received at the date of Marina 
Bardi’s disappearance. 

The house of the musician remains closed, 
with barred shutters and doors. The place 
has acquired the evil name of being haunted. 
Daniele Falcioni, with his debt paid, prudently 
withdrew from purchasing the property, had 
Gerard been disposed to sell it. The usurer 
was aware that even the mosaic-workers might 
hesitate to rent the rooms for workshops, and 
the humblest class of lodgers prefer to seek 
shelter elsewhere. 

On the Vigil of All Souls the citizen, whose 
courage is adequate, may pause before the 
door of the Gothic palace, at midnight, when 
he will hear the note of a violin wailing through 
the deserted chambers, and the rich, passion- 
ate voice of a woman singing, succeeded by 
w T ild shrieks and outbursts of mad laughter. 
The spirits of Leonardo Bardi and of his 
daughter are said to then frequent the spot. 

In the autumn, when the vintage was ripe, 
and the Brenta flooded the plains, Gerard 


THE PARIS SALON. 


288 


Grootz, accompanied by his son, reached 
Venice. 

The boy Marino, convalescing from a dan- 
gerous illness, had been taken to the Enga- 
dine, and through the Tyrol. 

“ I am to visit the parish church where 
mamma and old Gesualda used to pray, and 
see the picture of St. George,” said the little 
invalid. 

Gerard directed the gondola to the familiar 
campo , moved by conflicting emotions. 

Marino climbed the steps, and paused sud- 
denly to gaze up at the Gothic palace. 

64 What a strange house ! ” he murmured. 

Gerard made no response. In his own 
mind he experienced relief. The women had 
never described their former habitation to 
the children, then ? Better so. 

Marino approached the gates, and shook 
the iron- work with his feeble grasp. 4 4 Could 
we enter?” he questioned, half fearfully. 

44 No. The place is closed,” was the deci- 
sive response. 

A dwarf sat on the church step. Pippo did 
not recognize Gerard, who tossed him a coin 
in passing. 


284 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 

Marino prayed at the altar indicated by 
maternal affection, and inspected the altar- 
picture of San Giorgio, without comment. 
He could discern no resemblance between the 
slender stripling with flowing blonde hair, and 
the heavy maturity of his parent. 

“Now we must return to the hotel,” said 
Gerard, emerging once more into the campo. 

“ No. There was something else,” retorted 
Marino. 

“ What, my child ? ” 

66 1 am to see the usurer in his shop, all full 
of beautiful glass, ivory, and bronze, who was 
the dragon when you were very poor.” 

“ Ah ! ” 

They sought the precincts of Daniele Fal- 
cioni. The collection of pictures, stuffs, furni- 
ture, and weapons, was still fine ; but an assist- 
ant came forward to serve them. Daniele 
Falcioni and his family dwelt at Dome. 

Marino again paused in the middle of the 
campo , to gaze at the palazzo. 

“ What a strange house ! ” he repeated, 
and continued to look at it over his shoulder, 
as he followed his father to the gondola. 

Placing the child amidst the cushions, Ge- 


THE PARIS SALON. 


285 


rard swiftly returned. He removed his hat, he 
could have knelt save for the bright scrutiny 
of his son. The place was to him the tomb 
of many memories. A woman had hoped, 
aspired, suffered, and been wronged, within 
those prison-bars of circumstance, while her 
wedding portion awaited her in the secret 
recess. She had gone forth, and the sea 
depths had proved her marriage-bed, the 
waves her winding-sheet. 

That evening father and son floated on the 
Grand Canal. 

The gorgeous hues of sunset still lingered 
over tower and facade, tingeing the encircling 
waters a deep orange ; while the twilight al- 
ready shrouded the distant margin of build- 
ings where Gerard had dwelt when he came 
here as a young pilgrim. Already palpable 
darkness seemed to project on the liquid 
gold of the waters towards their craft, in 
the middle distance, as if the shadow of the 
house of the musician had fallen across their 
track. 

“ Papa, if I were not a Frenchman I should 
like to be a Venetian,” said Marino, and his 
voice acquired an elfin tone in the twilight. 


286 THE HOUSE OF THE MUSICIAN. 


44 Truly ? ” queried Gerard, preparing to 
light a cigar. 

“ Papa, I wish to be a musician ; ” the young 
voice grew still more weird and faint. 

Gerard put aside the cigar without com- 
ment. 

4 4 There is only one instrument in the world, 
and that is the violin,” said Marino. 

Gerard was silent. 

The boat floated on the waters, with the 
pure sky above. The past and the future 
blended thus, with the life-germ between. 


A Romance of Colonial Massachusetts. 

ACNES SURRIACE. By Edwin Lassetter Bynner, author 
of “ Nimport “ Tritons,” “ Damen’s Ghost, ^ etc. $1.50. 

The best novel that has come out of Boston this generation.” — Kate 
Sanborn . 

“ Picturesque and dramatic, — a genuine historical romance.” — George Par- 
sons Lathrop. 

“ I have derived much enjoyment from Mr. Bynner’s book ; it has strength 
and manliness.” — Julian Hawthorne. 

“A romance passionate, picturesque, and dramatic, full of strength and 
originality.” — Portland Press. 

“ The blue waters of Massachusetts Bay sparkle through its pages, and the 
storm-winds are seen whistling across Marblehead harbor, in the quaint old days 
of the Bay Colony. Bynner has in this romance begun a work for our lovely sea- 
coast such as Sir Walter Scott did for the islands and glens of Scotland, covering 
them with the rich and enduring glamour of poetic association.” 



TWO GENTLEMEN OF BOSTON. 1 vol. i2mo. $1.50. 

George Parsons Lathrop says that the author of “ Two Gentlemen of Bos- 
ton ” has a great deal of direct, impressive force, uncommon power of vivid 
narration, graphic skill in depicting ; and the book “ reminds one of the self- 
absorbed narration of Miss Burney’s ‘ Evelina,’ of Emily Bronte’s masterpiece, 

1 Wuthering Heights,’ and of Jane Austen’s microscopically realistic accounts of 
daily life.” 

See what the critics say of 

FORCED ACQUAINTANCES. A Book for Girls. By Edith 
Robinson. $1.50. 

“Delightful and amusing, — a lively sense of humor throughout.” — Quebec 
Chronicle. 

“ Fresh, wholesome, uncommonly witty, and entertaining.” — The Capital. 

“ Of a healthy influence, and of charming interest.” — Boston Home Journal. 

“ If Miss Robinson can keep on as well as she has begun, she has a brilliant 
literary future before her.” — Boston Courier. 

“ The book is a thoroughly healthy one, and can go on the shelf of a young 
girl’s library beside * The Old-Fashioned Girl,’ ‘ Little Women,’ and ‘ The Daisy 
Chain.’ ’ ’ — Bosto?i Transcript. 

* 

For sale by all booksellers. Sent , post-paid, on receipt of the price, 
by the publishers , 

TICKNOR AND COMPANY, Boston. 


TICKNOR & CO.’S CHOICE NOVELS 


Forced Acquaintances. By 

Edith Robinson . . . . $1.50 

The Devil’s Hat. By Mel- 
ville Philips 1.50 

Two Gentlemen of Boston 1.50 
Two College Girls. By 
Helen Dawes Brown . . 1.50 

A Muramasa Blade. By 
Louis Wertheimber . . . 3.00 

Agnes Surriage. By Edwin 
Lassetter Bynner .... 1.50 

Sons and Daughters. By 


Henry Hayes . . . . . 1.50 

The Story of Margaret 
Kent. By Henry Hayes . 1.50 

The Prelate. By Isaac Hen- 
derson 1.50 

Next Door. By Clara Louise 

Burnham 1.50 

Eustis. By R. A. Boit . . 1.50 

A Woman of Honor. By 
H. C. Bunner .... 1.25 

Aubert Dubayet. By Chas. 
Gayarr6 2.00 


John Eantoul. By Henry 
Loomis Nelson . . . . 1.50 

A Reverend Idol . . . . 1.50 

Where the Battle was 
Fought. By Charles Eg- 
bert Craddock 1.50 

Miss Ludington’s Sister. 

By Edward Bellamy . . . 1.25 

Eleanor Maitland. By Clara 
Erskine Clement .... 1.25 

Her Washington Season. 

By Jeanie Gould Lincoln . 1.50 

His Two Wives. By Mary 

Clemmer 1.50 

Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret. By 
Nathaniel Hawthorne . . 1.50 

A Midsummer Madness. By 
Ellen Olney Kirk . . . 1.25 

HENRY JAMES’S 

Daisy Miller #1.50 

The Siege of London . . . 1.50 

The Author of Beltraffio . . 1.50 

Tales of Three Cities . . . 1.50 

MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN’S 


A Washington Winter . . $1.50 

The Lost Name 1.00 


Lights and Shadows of a Life 1.50 

BARRETT WENDELL’S 

The Duchess Emilia . . . $1.00 
Rankell’s Remains . . . . 1.00 


ROSE TERRY COOKE’S 


The Sphinx’s Children . . $1.50 

Somebody’s Neighbors . . 1 50 

Happy Dodd .1.50 

NORA PERRY’S 

For a Woman $1.00 

Book of Love Stories . . . 1.00 

Tragedy of the Unexpected . 1.00 

MR. HOWELLS’S HOVELS. 

The Minister’s Charge . . #1.50 

Indian Summer 1.50 

The Rise of Silas Lapham . 1.50 

A W r Oman’s Reason . . . 1.50 

A Modern Instance . . . . 1.50 

Dr. Breen’s Practice . . . 1.50 

A Fearful Responsibility . . 1.50 

JULIAN HAWTHORNE’S 

Love — or a Name .... #1.50 

Fortune’s Fool 1.50 

Beatrix Randolph .... 1.50 

EDGAR FAWCETT’S 

The Confessions of Claud . #1.50 
The House at High Bridge . 1.50 

Tinkling Cymbals . . . . 1.50 

Adventures of a Widow . . 1.50 

Social Silhouettes .... 1.50 

ROBERT CRANT’S 

A Romantic Young Lady . $1.50 
Confessions of a Frivolous Girl 1 .25 
An Average Man . . . . 1.50 

The Knave of Hearts . . . 1.25 

EDWARD KING’S 

The Golden Spike . . . . #1.50 

The Gentle Savage .... 2.00 

E. W. HOWE’S 

A Moonlight Boy .... $1.50 
The Story of a Country Town 1.50 
The Mystery of the Locks . 1.50 

Blanche w. Howard’s 

Guenn #1-50 

Aulnay Tower 1.50 

Aunt Serena 1.25 

MARY HALLOCK FOOTE’S 

John Bodewin’s Testimony . #1.50 
The Led-IIorse Claim . . . 1.25 

HENRY CREVILLE’S 

Count Xavier Jpi.00 

Dosia’sDaughter . . . . 1.25 

Cleopatra . . .... 1.25 


UNIFORM IN SIZE AND PRICE , WITH THIS VOLUME. 


A Nameless Nobleman. 

The Hartford Courant says: “The 
author has preserved for us in it the odors 
of both the rose of Provence and the May- 
flower of New England.” 


A Lesson in Love. 

The Boston Traveller says: “The 
charm of ‘A Lesson in Love ’ begins with 
the title, and does not vanish for a mo- 
ment to the turning of the last leaf.” 


The Georgians. 

“As a study of the working of human 
souls, we think this book very close upon 
Hawthorne’s best effort. . . . The 
grand and profound climax lingers in the 
mind like the story of Hester Prynne.” 
% 

Patty's Perversiiies. 

“A charming story of quiet New-Eng- 
land life. It has the genuine flavor of 
the soil.” — Woman' s Journal. 

—4 

Nomoselle. 

Virginia life under the old regime. 

“ Besides its other merits, the tale is a 
love idyl of great sweetness and tender- 
ness.” — Harper's Magazine. 

Damen’s Ghost 

The St. Paul Pioneer Press speaks 
thus: “Were it possible for anyone to 
be thoroughly conversant with the works 
of the great novelists, and yet retain no 
memory of names or events, he would 
say unhesitatingly that Chapter IV. was 
written by Dickens in his happiest vein.” 


Rosemary * ”</ Rue. 

i “ Its manner is cultivated, delicate, and 
every way beautiful. It is full of tender- 
I ness and sweetness ; it is fragrant with 
all filial and marital virtues ; it is more 
than a novel; it is a novelty.” — Liter- 
ary World. 


Madame Lucas. 

“ A very charming bit of work from an 
author of much cultivation.” — Critic. 

A Tallahassee Girl. 

“Among the very best of recent Amer- 
ican stories, and very far ahead of any of 
the many novels of Southern life. Above 
all, the book is pervaded with the balmy 
air and sunshine and the rich landscape 
color of Florida.” — Phila. Times. 

( 

Dorothea. 

“Brightness and cleverness.” — Liter- 
ary World. 



The Desmond Hundred. 

“The strongest American novel in 
many a year.” — The Churchman. 

Leone. 

“ A story of Italian life written by an 
Italian, and shows an impressive fidelity 
to time and place.” — Boston Traveller. 

— 4 

Doctor Ben. 

“ The story as a whole is a singularly 
fascinating one.” — The Standard. 

— — 

Rachel* s Share of the Road. 

“A bright, fresh, capital story, grace- 
fully and artistically written.” — Morn- 
ing Star. 

Fanchette. 

« An extremely well written and inter- 
esting work — quite above the average, 
and deservedly to be recommended.” 

■ ♦ — 

His Second Campaign. 

« The atmosphere of the book is pure- 
ly and truly Southern, so that the read- 
er feels some of the fascination which 
Southern people lay so much stress 
upon.” — New York Star. 


TICKNOR AND COMPANY, BOSTON. 


Tickror’s Paper Series 

For the Hummer of 1887 . 


A series of handsome and attractive books 
for leisure-hour and summer-day reading, made 
up of some of the choicest and most success- 
ful novels of late years, with several entirely 
new novels by well-known and popular writers. 

The following dre the titles of the first numbers : — 

x. The Story of Margaret Kent. By Henry Hayes. 

2. Cuenn. By Blanche W. Howard, author of “One 

Summer.” 

3 . The Cruise of a Woman Hater, By G. De 

Montauban. 

4. A Reverend Idol. A Massachusetts-Coast romance 

5. A Nameless Nobleman. By Jane G. Austin. 

6. The Prelate. A Roman Story. By Isaac Hen- 
derson. 

Eleanor Maitland. By Clara Erskine Clement. 
The House of the Musician. By Virginia W. 
Johnson, author of “Neptune’s Vase,” etc. 
iraldine. A metrical romance of the St. Lawrence. 
>uchess Emilia. By Barrett Wendell. 
of Three Cities, By Henry James. 
ouse at High Bridge. By Edgar Fawcett. 
Story of a Country Town. By E. W. Howe. 


Price per volume . , FIFTY CENTS. Sub- 
scription price, postage-paid , $6.50 a 
quarter. Subscriptions received 
by the Publishers. 




















































* 






















































































- 























. 






• . 

- 
























































